


Back Again

by ScoutNDemond (orphan_account)



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Flowey Redemption, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Minor Violence, Sort Of, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2018-12-21 22:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11954331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ScoutNDemond
Summary: After two years of being on the Surface, Papyrus finds himself back in the Underground with a certain flower. Now the two must travel together to find their way to the Surface, all while coming to terms with their own problems and insecurities.





	1. Prologue

Guilt. What an odd thing to feel. Incomplete, yet still there, and it encompassed everything. It had been so long since he had last felt anything, and yet now here it was, the very last emotion he would have wanted to experience. If he were capable of properly feeling the emotion, he knew he would likely be wallowing in grief or despair. Thankfully, both of those emotions were far too strong for him to experience. After all, he had only gained a small portion of a soul. A small chunk, not even close to half the size of a complete soul.  


How it had happened was beyond him, though he suspected that it was entirely his own fault, or should he say Asriel’s fault. He must have done something during the time that he had gathered the six human souls and all of the monsters’ souls from the Underground. Perhaps something of his old, lost soul had lingered around and nestled its way back into this joke of a body. Maybe he had unintentionally stolen small portions of other monsters’ souls and kept them as his own. Either way, it didn’t matter now, as had he an incomplete soul and he was not happy about it.  


He sat, staring dejectedly into the small flower patch he had taken up residence in long ago. The grove at the end of the Ruins was ideal, seeing as it was the most secluded area of the Underground, not that it mattered anymore, since everyone had left a couple of years ago. Surrounded by flowers not unlike himself, gazing towards the opening of Mt. Ebott, far above him. It was quiet and lonely. He could spend the rest of this timeline like this.  


While he never could completely remember anything that occurred before any of Frisk’s true resets, he could always scrounge up bits and pieces of those timelines. He knew that situations like this—where the Barrier was destroyed and the monsters made it to the Surface—had come by numerous times. He knew that Frisk would always, without fail, eventually do a true reset, sending everyone back to the Underground.  


During those other timelines, when everyone was free and he was left behind to rot, he wondered if the past versions of himself had also gained small bits of their souls back. He wondered if they too regretted everything they had done; if they feared for the next true reset, when it would all be taken away. Was this how that smiley trash bag always felt? Knowing that even though he had finally found freedom on the Surface, it could and would be taken away at any second, and by the child whom he had adopted, no less?  


Grumbling, he shook his head. Taking his glare up to the opening of Mt. Ebott, he did his best to crush the guilt and fear building up within him. This was not how he was. For god’s sake, he didn’t feel nonsense like this! That was…well, that was his old self’s job; to feel. Vaguely, he wondered if Asriel knew what he had been doing when he made the conscious decision to stay in the Underground, waiting for his regained body to fade away and return to its state as a (now mostly) soulless flower. Perhaps he suspected that his counterpart would unintentionally maintain a small chunk of soul. Perhaps Asriel kept the small fragment on purpose.  


These were of course pointless thoughts, as he could very clearly remember the short amount of time he spent as the former prince. As much as he hated to admit it, they were the same being, and he could remember just as much of his time as Asriel as the small prince could remember of his time as a soulless flower. The prince never knew he would keep a fragment of a soul; he merely felt that he had no right to return to the Surface with everyone. Despite this, he could not stop thinking that perhaps somewhere, somehow, Asriel had just known.  


Sighing, he dropped his head, looking for all purposes like a wilted flower. These were pointless thoughts indeed. It didn’t matter at this point. It never would matter. Given enough time, Frisk would reset. No one would remember a thing, including both he and that obnoxious pile of trash skeleton. There was no point in anything anymore. He supposed he should be at least a little bit thankful at being able to forget, though. After all, going through the same timeline over and over again got quite dull after a while. Being able to forget kept things interesting for him.  


The ground beneath him darkened as something, likely clouds, blocked off the sun’s view from Mt. Ebott’s opening. Not even bothering to lift his gaze to check up above him, he closed his eyes, further lowering his head. He tried to tell himself how much he hoped that Frisk would reset the timeline soon. Things were getting near unbearable for him, what with the constant guilt and fear running through his soul, both emotions small and incomplete, yet still present enough to drive him mad.  


Besides, things were beginning to get boring. Something exciting needed to happen soon, otherwise he was certain he’d drown in all of his new, broken emotions. Unfortunately, no one in their right mind would ever want to return to the Underground, so there was no hope there. All he could do was sit and wait, hoping against hope that something would happen sooner or later.


	2. Actually Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angry humans, minor violence, lots of swearing, and general confusion.

One of the men shoved him forward as he tried to regain his footing one last time. With his left side as injured as it was by that point, Papyrus stood no chance in staying on the short ledge they had dropped him on. This time he fell the remaining length of the inner mountain, desperately trying to maneuver himself onto his right side before hitting the ground. While his efforts spared him any more pain on his increasingly injured side, the impact with the ground inflicted more than enough pain to cause him to cry out through his gag. The final drop had been much longer than any of the others before that. Delirious though he was through the pain, he couldn’t help but wonder just how Frisk had survived falling the entire length of the mountain.

The humans finished climbing down sooner than he would have liked, one of them grabbing the humerus of his left arm to drag him up. While he did manage to stifle the scream that built up from this action, he couldn’t stop the one he let loose after stepping down on his left foot wrong. Fully unable to keep himself standing through the pain, he collapsed onto the man still gripping his arm.

“Get the fuck up,” was all the man said, the voice telling Papyrus that it was indeed the same human who had dragged him all the way up Mt. Ebott with the rest of the group.

It turned out that this was another situation where his best simply wasn’t enough, as there was no way he would be able to stand with his left leg the way it was. With how things had been going that day, it didn’t surprise him at all when the man finally let go of his arm, kicking him in the face as he dropped to the ground.

“Dan, just drag the thing if you have to. I already told you I’m not putting up with this shit,” came the angry voice of their leader.

Dread filled Papyrus at the sound of the man’s command. They had already dragged him all the way up Mt. Ebott. The experience itself had been worse than any of those drops he had taken to get back down to the Underground, and the very thought of having to be dragged through his homeland nearly caused him another panic attack.

He heard the man near him reaching down to grab him once more. Instinctively, he tensed up, close to tears at that point, but the man never touched him.

“What the hell?” he heard the human question, before hearing him stand up and begin to struggle. “What the fuck is this shit?” he nearly yelled, panic quickly filling his voice.

“Dan, what the hell did that thing do?” one of the men demanded. Papyrus could hear him and one of the other two running over. He sincerely hoped that whatever was going on, the humans would be able to figure out that he was definitely _not_ the one causing it.

“I don’t know, man—!” The human’s cry was interrupted as something dragged him to the ground. Or at least that’s what Papyrus assumed, only hearing continued shuffling and slithering accompanied by a loud thunk.

The man’s two companions reached the spot where he and his monster captive were, shouting for their fellow human and demanding that Papyrus stop what he was (not) doing. For a moment he thought that one of them would strike him again, as he heard someone stomp just beside him, but nothing happened. It took him a moment through all of the yelling and cursing, but he soon figured out that the two men who had run over had _also_ been taken down by whatever was attacking them.

“You son of a bitch!” one of them yelled, and he was certain the man was directing it at him. “You better let us go now, or I’ll kill you myself!”

It was at that moment that Papyrus truly hoped that those men would never be freed, because the anger had driven the man’s voice to near incoherency. The fact that he couldn’t even tell which man it was frightened him more than anything, and he could only wonder how long the humans would remain contained. Fear drove him to struggle his way into a sitting position, though he knew there was no way he’d be able to stand or run away, not as injured, blindfolded, and bound as he was.

“I think you’re threatening the wrong monster, buddy,” sounded a new voice, barely audible through the three men’s shouting. Still, it appeared to catch their attention, as they quieted down after hearing it.

“What the _fuck_?” the man to Papyrus’ left whispered.

“Oh, do I have your attentions now? Golly, how great!”

Now that Papyrus could actually hear the voice properly, he knew that he recognized the speaker, but it couldn’t be who he thought it was. Everyone he knew had left the Underground after the Barrier had been destroyed, hadn’t they?

“I suppose I should introduce myself, huh?”

“How about you fuck off, you weed?” the enraged voice of the group’s leader sounded. His quip was shortly followed by a loud shout as said “weed” apparently attacked him. Papyrus had no idea what his friend was doing, but it didn’t sound good.

“ _Anyways_ ,” the cheerful voice giggled, “I’m Flowey! Flowey the flower!”

At the introduction, the man to Papyrus’ left began whispering disbelief to himself once more. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the human was close to hyperventilating or having some sort of breakdown.

Ignoring the man’s panicked muttering, Flowey continued on with his little speech. “You guys might not know this, but that skeleton there is a _real_ good buddy of mine! He’s the nicest guy I know, and when I see you guys tossing him around like that, it just tears my weak little soul up inside!” he cried out in a singsong voice.

As he finished, Papyrus felt something slithering around the arms tied behind his back, undoing the bindings and letting them free. He felt more of the things sliding up the base of his skull, removing his scarf that the men had used as both a blindfold and gag. His vision finally returned to him, he squinted through the sunlight filtering down the mountain’s opening high above them all. The man who had dragged him up the entire mountain was the one beside him breathing heavily and panicking. Beside the man was the group’s leader, looking more furious than Papyrus had ever seen him during the entire time of his kidnapping. The third man was the one to his right, remaining oddly quiet. All three of them were bound to the ground by thick vines from Flowey. Turning to look behind him revealed the flower in question, fully visible to the three men bound to the ground.

Glancing down brought his attention to the left side of his body, bones cracked and bruised from head to toe. He hugged his scarf to himself using his (mostly) good arm, dropping his gaze to the ruined flowers on his right. Though he had only caught a glimpse of himself, it was enough to make him feel ill.

“Well,” the flower began, his tone shifting drastically, “I don’t think I really appreciate you _idiots_ coming down here, tossing my _stupid_ , _goody-good_ buddy around. It’s really irritating, and I’d appreciate it if you’d all just _die_.”

That jolted something in Papyrus’ systems. He spun around to face Flowey again, hearing the men begin to scream as the vines tightened around them all.

It was then that the fourth man finally chose to reveal himself from the cavern leading out of the small grove. Papyrus only had enough time to look back and see the burly man raising his pistol before it was knocked out of his hands by a vine. Just as his companions were before him, he was bound down.

“Oh, what’s this? _Another_ disgusting human?” Flowey spat out, having the vines around the fourth man tighten until he was screaming in pain along with his companions.

The screams made Papyrus feel more ill than seeing his own wounds ever would. It didn’t matter that the humans had kidnapped and hurt him, he didn’t enjoy seeing others in pain like this. Once more he felt himself near tears as he looked back at his friend.

“F-Flowey…” he coughed out, his voice rough from the screaming he had been doing since being captured. He would plead with Flowey if he had to, it didn’t matter how much it hurt to speak over the men’s pained shouting.

To his surprise, the dark grin upon Flowey’s face immediately softened upon hearing Papyrus’ voice, the flower’s expression shifting from frightening to just looking lost. The men stopped screaming, to Papyrus’ relief, as the vines loosened up to how they had been before. The flower brought his gaze up to Papyrus, giving out a nervous giggle before his look turned serious, his attention brought back to the four men.

“Sorry, did I scare you guys?” His cheerful demeanor was back, though it now sounded a little too forced. It must have sounded the same to him as well, as he dropped it before continuing on in a bored, despondent tone. “I don’t know why you idiots are here, and honestly, I don’t even care. Just get out of here and leave the skeleton with me.” He gestured with a vine to the only cavern leaving out of the area. “You can leave the Ruins that way if you want to be down here so bad.”

It wasn’t long before Papyrus noticed that the vines binding the man to his right were moving, grabbing any weapons off of him and pulling them away towards Flowey. The two men to his left and the one near the cavern were given similar treatment, all guns and knives being taken. A few vines carefully coiled around Papyrus, urging him towards the flower behind him. He helped to the best of his ability, scooting back until he was sitting next to Flowey. Meanwhile, the vines around the four men shoved them away, closer to the cavern leading out towards the Ruins.

“If any of you try to do something stupid, I’ll kill you on the spot, got it?” Flowey muttered, still in a bored tone.

With that, he released the men from their holds, allowing them to get up. The man who had been panicking the entire time nearly ran from the area, the fourth man who had initially remained hidden following after hesitantly. The leader meanwhile turned to glare at both Flowey and Papyrus. He was about to open his mouth, no doubt to cuss both monsters out and threaten them, but a particularly large vine smacked him in the face before he could say anything. Another vine shoved him back towards the cavern none too gently.

“ _Fuck_ you!” the group’s leader ground out, angrily following his other two men once he noticed the many other vines Flowey had poised to attack him. The last man, who had remained silent throughout a majority of the scenario, followed his leader diligently, as if in a daze.

Flowey kept his vines positioned near the cavern for a few dwindling moments before letting them all slide back into the ground. The men could no longer be heard shouting or complaining down the cavern by the time the flower dropped his guard.

He sighed, looking up at Papyrus. “Were there only four?” he asked.

Papyrus nodded, still rattled from everything that had happened recently. “Y-Yeah.” His voice was still rough, though speaking was much easier on his throat now that he didn’t have to shout over the screaming of all those humans.

“I can tell whenever someone’s on the ground down here, but I can’t feel anyone above the Surface or on the mountain. That’s the only reason I asked,” he muttered, looking away.

“Oh.” Papyrus didn’t know what else to say to that comment.

It was quiet for a few more moments before Flowey spoke again. “If they try to come back, I’ll know, so it’s not like they’ll be able to get _revenge_ or something stupid like that,” he spat out, glaring at the cavern. He brought his gaze up to Papyrus, looking over the wounds running up and down the left side of his body. “What were they trying to do anyways?”

He looked away, for once unable to meet his friend’s eyes. Those men had kidnapped and hurt him for reasons he simply couldn’t understand. What was he supposed to say? How was he even supposed to react to seeing Flowey again in the first place, after everything he knew the flower had done?

“They…” he paused, hugging his scarf to himself once again. “They’re looking for something down here. They thought I would know where it is.”

An annoyed scoff, followed by a disbelieving “ _what_?” drew his full attention back towards the flower. Flowey was no longer looking over his injured body, but instead was staring back at the cavern, an incredulous look upon his face.

“Humans are even stupider than I thought!” he almost laughed. “What do they think could possibly be down here that _you_ would know about?”

Papyrus would have felt offended if he hadn’t already been so worn out from the whole experience. Or perhaps not. He knew now that everything Flowey had ever told him had been true. Looking back at everything, he never knew a single thing about what went on in the Underground.

“I was the first monster the humans saw on the Surface, so I think they thought I was important and knew about a lot of really important stuff.” He sighed, staring pointedly at the ground. “They should have gone to Sans if they wanted someone who actually knew anything.”

There was that ever present depression he had been falling into lately. His kidnapping had been a momentary distraction from everything he had been feeling since moving to the Surface, but there it was now, back in full force. Having Flowey there to remind him of his inadequacies certainly was not helping. After his statement, he fully expected his friend to belittle him; tell him that yes, the humans should have gone after someone who wasn’t just some idiot. He waited, but Flowey remained quiet.

Curious, he side-eyed the flower, only to see that his friend was staring at him. Not understanding what Flowey was doing, he returned his gaze to the floor.

“There’s nothing left down here, you know,” Flowey eventually muttered. “I mean, there’s the Core, but it overheated and shut down a long time ago. It’s completely useless to them. I don’t know how they came up with the idea that everyone was actually stupid enough to leave something ‘important’ down here.”

“I don’t know. I bet Sans and Dr. Alphys know something.”

His friend scoffed again. “Well, _your brother_ maybe. It’s not like he ever tells anyone anything.”

“No, not really,” Papyrus shrugged.

The two fell into yet another uncomfortable silence. Papyrus wasn’t certain how long it lasted, but it ended shortly once he felt a handful of vines carefully sliding along the bones on the left side of his body.

“F-Flowey? What are you doing?” he questioned, nervous of what the flower might be planning.

“You can barely move. Don’t you want me to heal you?” Flowey responded, giving him a bored look.

While he still considered Flowey to be a good friend, he still didn’t know if he could trust him like he used to. After all, he _was_ the plant who had stolen everyone’s souls and tried to kill them all. Sans himself told him that the flower had done even more than that in the past.

“But, why?”

Flowey’s bored expression turned conflicted, leaving him with a lost appearance not dissimilar to earlier.

“Do you want me to heal you or not?” he repeated.

Papyrus sighed and relaxed, letting the vines do their job. Within moments he felt the healing magic coursing through him, mending the cracks and bruises along his bones. It wasn’t long until Flowey had finished, and Papyrus felt himself returned back to his physical peak. The vines retreated as he began testing the left side of his body. He could finally move both his arm and leg without any significant amounts of pain, and found that he could now comfortably draw his legs up and wrap his arms around his knees.

“Thanks, Flowey,” he murmured, still not looking in his friend’s direction.

“Yeah, whatever,” was his reply. “Where are your clothes anyways? You kind of need more than boots and a scarf for mountain climbing,” he practically sneered.

He was glad that he had finally been healed, as he could now curl in on himself and hide. “The humans said skeletons don’t need to wear clothing, so they took it all off.”

“Wow, what sickos,” the flower muttered quietly, possibly just to himself. He cleared his throat lightly, Papyrus assuming that he was uncomfortable with the situation. “They didn’t, you know, _do_ anything to you, did they?”

Papyrus honestly didn’t know what Flowey meant by that, though he tried to hide it. “They hit me and dragged me around and stuff, but that’s it.”

It was then that he looked over and found Flowey trying to hide his own face from view. “Oh, well, that’s good I guess,” he gave a nervous giggle, as he now seemed prone to doing.

For what felt like the hundredth time that day, the two fell into another uncomfortable silence. This time it was Papyrus who broke it, the question he had been wondering about nagging him for answers.

“Flowey, why are you still here?”

“Huh? You’re kidding, right?” the flower sputtered, whipping his head around to stare incredulously at the skeleton next to him.

“No. I don’t understand why you didn’t come to the Surface with the rest of us.”

Flowey appeared too flabbergasted to even come up with a proper insult for that. “After _everything_ I did, you think I deserve to come up to the Surface with everyone else?”

At this question, Papyrus shrugged, playing with the hem of the scarf he still held. “No one deserves to be stuck down here alone, not even you. I know you can be a better person. If you came up to the Surface, Frisk and I could help you.”

There was that nervous giggle again. “You’re so _stupid_.” And there was the delayed, obligatory insult. “Papyrus, I _can’t_ be a better person. If I went up to the Surface, I’d just end up hurting everyone again and you know it.”

“But you didn’t hurt me.”

“Do you _know_ what I’ve done to you? I’ve done worse things to you than _anyone else_. Repeatedly!”

“No, I mean now!” Papyrus clarified, confused by the flower’s statement, but choosing to ignore it for the moment. “You could have hurt me with all of those humans, but you didn’t!” He uncurled from his current position, fully facing the flower. “You could have killed those humans too, but you stopped! You saved me and let the humans go. You even healed me! Don’t tell me you can’t be better!”

Flowey tried to look angry, though his expression quickly fell into a look that was quickly becoming familiar for him; the one that more-or-less screamed that the flower felt lost and confused. “I just did it because I was bored, okay? I do bad things when I’m bored—” he stopped himself. “I mean, I…”

“If that’s the truth, then you would have killed us all! Or let those humans keep hurting me!” Papyrus felt a smile forming on his face, he couldn’t help it. “You called me your friend, too!”

Flowey hid his face again. “Stop being so stupid!” he yelled halfheartedly. “Why do both you and Frisk have to be like this? So forgiving? I don’t get it,” his tone quieted down.

He jolted as a boney hand hesitantly patted him on the head.

“It’s easy! I already told you everyone can be a better person; they just have to try!” He brought his hand back as Flowey shied away.

“Even those humans who brought you down here?” Flowey sneered.

The flower’s statement didn’t even bring him pause. “Well, apparently you’ve done worse things to me, and I still think _you_ can be better, so why not those humans?”

“Golly, you’re really asking to get yourself killed,” his friend muttered to himself once again. “How’d they even capture you in the first place?” he asked in a clear attempt to change the subject. “Did they tell you they wanted to bring you on a fun adventure?” he mocked.

“No,” he mumbled, bringing his knees back up to lean over them. “They broke into my house and knocked me out. I was afraid to fight them because I didn’t want to hurt them or anything.”

“Of course,” was Flowey’s only response. Papyrus could see the plant rolling his eyes. Then the flower glanced up towards the cavern, something catching his interest. “The humans left the Ruins,” he informed the skeleton. “They’ll probably get lost in Snowdin Forest, so you might be able to get past them and get back to the Surface without getting captured again.”

The flower looked Papyrus over once more. “You should stop at my mo—” He stopped to correct himself. “Er, Toriel’s old place once you get to the end of the Ruins. I know she used to knit a lot of clothing. She might’ve left some behind when everyone moved to the Surface.”

At that, Papyrus sat in contemplation. “Will you meet me there?” he asked.

“Why?” Flowey grumbled, clearly getting annoyed with Papyrus’ insistence.

“Well, just in case those humans come back around! You could tell me where they are so I can avoid them in Snowdin!” he responded, perhaps a little too quickly.

Flowey pondered the idea, sending an irritated look the skeleton’s way. “You wouldn’t have to _worry_ about such things if you would just fight back. The humans can’t touch you if you use your blue magic on them properly,” he scoffed. “But of _course_ you’re too stupid to realize that hurting them is better than being captured and beaten!”

The smile Papyrus had been wearing slipped away as he drew his gaze towards the nearby cavern. “Please? You only have to meet me at Toriel’s house, that’s it. I won’t ask you to meet me anywhere else, I promise.”

“Really?” Flowey muttered before sighing. “Why do you even care? You know I tried to kill everyone, and yet you’re still begging me to come see you off?”

His smile returned somewhat at his friend’s confusion. “I already told you. You can be a better person. And…and I want to see my really cool friend one last time before I take off!”

For a moment he didn’t think Flowey would answer him, until he heard a quiet “Fine,” from beside him. He felt his face light up instantly; his plan was working! He whipped around before Flowey could react properly, throwing his hands behind the flower and hugging him as best he could.

“Yes! Thank you so much, Flowey! I’m so excited!” he practically screamed in the flower’s face.

“Okay! Golly, stop yelling before I change my mind!” he retorted in irritation. “And let me go while you’re at it!”

Papyrus let his friend go and sprung up to his feet, wobbling slightly due to adjusting to his recovered injuries.

“I can’t wait! I’ll see you at Toriel’s, okay? Bye!” he waved excitedly, rushing off through the cavern the four men had gone through previously.

Flowey sat for some time after the skeleton had gone, shaking his head in utter confusion. “You’re such an idiot,” he laughed to himself. As much as he tried to fight it, a smile wormed its way onto his face. He really did hate having a part of his soul back; it caused him to feel too many useless emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a fan of this chapter because of the humans, but things calm down considerably after this, so that's why I put up with it.


	3. Chapter 3

Papyrus made it to the end of the Ruins without conflict, seeing as not only were the Ruins completely abandoned, but all of the puzzles had been previously solved anyways. If he was being honest with himself, it gave off a lonely feeling, one that he didn’t particularly care for. He had spent his entire two years on the Surface sitting alone in his empty house and feeling unwanted. Being back in the Underground did nothing to quell those feelings. Still, he had a reason to smile. After all, he found someone who needed him, even after all of the time that had passed since their last meeting.

So what if his brother didn’t need him anymore? If he didn’t feel like part of his brother’s (or any of his friends’, really) life? He found someone who needed help, and he was determined to give them the assistance they needed, no matter how vehemently they declared they didn’t need it. He saw no reason for Flowey to sit down there alone for the rest of his life, even if the flower in question said that he deserved it. Papyrus would prove him wrong and show him that he could become a better person! He already saw the makings of a better person after Flowey saved him from those humans; now he just needed Flowey himself to see it.

He laughed to himself, his mood having soared higher than it had for a long time. Perhaps those humans dragging him down here was a good thing after all? Something that was destined to happen all along? He laughed to himself again. Only good outcomes could occur from all of this, of that he was certain.

Seeing a large building come into sight, Papyrus figured that he must have reached the end of the Ruins. While he had never been to Toriel’s old house himself, it was easy enough for him to deduce that this was it, seeing as Frisk had made it very clear to him in the past just how straightforward the Ruins were compared to the rest of the Underground. Of course, it helped when there was a familiar yellow flower sitting near the large tree in front of the house. His grin furthered, thrilled that Flowey had kept to his word and arrived.

“Hi, Flowey! You came!” he shouted across the yard, running up to his friend.

Flowey, in return, looked mildly peeved, finding himself being shouted at again. “Yeah, I’m here. You can leave and I can go back to my grove now, right?”

“No, not yet!” Papyrus insisted, giving a small jump in his excitement. “You need to wait for me to get dressed and give a proper goodbye!”

Flowey threw his head back dramatically, exasperated by Papyrus’ nonsense. “Oh my god, how does that smiley trash bag put up with you?”

Papyrus flinched, stopping short. “He doesn’t.”

That, in turn, stopped Flowey in his tracks. “Wait, what?”

He could feel sweat forming along the base of his skull, though he tried to hide his nervousness, putting back up an excited front. “No, it’s nothing! I’ll…I’ll be in Toriel’s getting ready to leave!” He was already running into the house before he finished speaking. “Don’t leave before I come back!”

Slamming the entranceway’s door shut, he sighed, putting a hand to his face. That was the _last_ thing Flowey had needed to ask him. He repressed a sob, quickly getting his act back together. This situation was about Flowey, not him. How could he help his friend if he couldn’t keep himself from breaking down at the slightest mention of his failed relationship with everyone he knew? He had to harden his resolve. There was no way he would fail Flowey. He _couldn’t_.

The first thing he did was locate the bedrooms. If Toriel had left any clothing behind, it would be there. The first room was a bust, seeing as there was nothing but children’s clothing in it. The second room, though, held promise. Pulling open the drawers, he first found a collection of socks (so _this_ was where Sans had got that habit from), then located a good amount of pants, not that any of them were small enough to fit him. Taking into account the fact that he never wore pants anyways, he didn’t consider it much of a loss. His next destination was the dresser near the bed. In there he located a handful of dresses. While he did consider them, he eventually came across what he assumed to be hand-knit sweaters.

Pulling out a large, red and orange sweater, he figured that it would do. Throwing it on, he noted that not only was it large enough to cover his pelvis bone (which really, he only cared about covering that and his rib cage), but it was also really comfy. He was starting to figure out why Frisk wore nothing but the clothes Toriel made for them all of the time. Taking a good look in the mirror hanging from the door, he had to admit that he really liked it. Grabbing his scarf and wrapping it around his neck completed his “outfit”, and with that, he decided he was done with the search for clothing. Now for the next part of his plan.

Leaving the room, he found the first thing he was looking for immediately sitting in the hall. One quick search of the house then led him to finding the other component for his plan. The upcoming part after this would be where things got difficult, but he was sure he would manage. So he left the house, waiting to see what Flowey’s reaction would be.

“No,” was of course the immediate response, though Papyrus just smiled, having expected this.

“I’m taking you to the Surface with me!” he stated in turn. “You can’t stop me!”

“I said no, Papyrus!” Flowey repeated, affronted. He stared in horror at the shovel and flowerpot that the skeleton held before him. “And you promised I only had to meet you here, nothing else!”

“No, I promised that you wouldn’t have to _meet_ with me anywhere else!” he grinned.

Flowey’s glower turned flabbergasted. “Well, I’m still not going!”

“Then stop me from trying!” Papyrus laughed in response.

He wasn’t certain _how_ he knew Flowey wouldn’t stop him, but he found that he wasn’t incorrect in his assumption. For all of his complaining, Flowey made no attempts whatsoever in taking the shovel and flowerpot from him.

“Do you really think anyone else will allow this? They’ll throw me right back down here if they don’t kill me on the spot!” he retorted.

“Frisk won’t. Everyone listens to them, you know. If they don’t want the others hurting you, then you won’t get hurt.” He stared down at the gardening utensils in his hands, his mood taking a drastic shift, as was prone to happening those days. “I’m already a burden on everyone anyways. What’s it matter if they all end up hating me for this?”

The two were silent, Papyrus feeling tears prick at the corners of his eye sockets. Flowey was left astounded, not understanding what had happened to the happy-go-lucky skeleton standing before him.

“Maybe you hate me too, I guess,” Papyrus murmured. He dropped the shovel and flowerpot. These moods came out of nowhere, and as much as he hated feeling such irrational thoughts as this, there was nothing he could do to stop them. “I could move back to Snowdin, though. So you can visit someone when you feel lonely, you know? No one on the Surface would miss me.”

The conflicted look never left Flowey’s face, even as his vines grabbed the gardening utensils and gently pushed them back into Papyrus’ hands.

“Don’t do that.” His voice sounded defeated and confused, not that Papyrus blamed him for the latter. “I’ll meet you at New Home. I can’t warn you when the humans are nearby if I’m not planted in the ground. Putting me in that pot now is a bad idea.”

Papyrus brought his attention from the reclaimed flowerpot and shovel back to his friend. “But how will I know that you’re not just tricking me?”

“What, _now_ you question that?” A sad smile flitted across the flower’s face.

“You don’t want to leave. You’ve been trying to get rid of me since you saved me. It’d be really stupid if I made it all the way to New Home and you never showed up.” He sighed. “I’m going to go now. Bye, Flowey.” He threw a weak smile on his face. “I’ll be in Snowdin if you need me, okay?”

“No, damn it, you’re going back to the Surface!” Flowey nearly yelled, anger lacing the edge of his voice. “And I’ll go in the flowerpot if it’ll get me closer to smacking your piece of trash brother and figuring out what the hell he’s been doing to you!”

Papyrus felt as though he himself had just been slapped. Where did _that_ come from?

“Flowey, Sans hasn’t done anything! Please don’t call him names like that—”

“Well, he’s done _something_! I know you, and the only times I’ve ever see you act like this is when _I_ personally do something to make you like this. And I’m telling you now, I have _not_ been a good person to you in the past.”

“Listen, Flowey,” Papyrus stopped him, thoroughly confused, “I don’t know what you’re talking about again, but I’m telling you Sans hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s me, honestly.” He thought about it for a moment. “Why are you so mad about this anyways? You said so yourself that you can’t change.” He gave Flowey a knowing look.

Once more, the flower’s face shifted from being enraged to affronted. “Well, I’m,” he stumbled over his words, “I’m not used to this, okay? I’m not supposed to be able to feel anything!” He glared at the ground, likely willing himself to just teleport away from the situation. “I got a part of my soul back. I was completely soulless before, so I couldn’t feel anything. But then I made the stupid mistake of taking all of those human souls and all of _your_ guys’ souls, and I’m left with _this_. This small chunk of a soul. Trust me, I hate it.”

While Papyrus couldn’t quite put a finger on _why_ a smile was slowly forming on his face, he couldn’t say that he was complaining. “Well, that’s like me right now. I mean, sometimes I’m fine, and I go on like I always do, but then other times it just hits me, and I get really sad. I start feeling like nobody needs me or even likes me, and I feel so worthless whenever that happens. I don’t really like feeling things when that happens, either.” He contemplated, then continued on, “But, you shouldn’t hate what’s going on with you! You’re probably not used to feeling stuff like you said, and yeah, it sucks when you get sad like I’ve been lately, but it’s also really fun! You can feel happy, and you can like people, and you can even love them, too!”

Flowey nearly laughed. “ _Love_? Are you kidding me? I might have some of my soul back, but it’s small, remember? It’s incomplete. Love is way too strong of an emotion for me to ever feel again.”

“But anger is a strong emotion too, isn’t it?” he responded, genuinely interested in Flowey’s answer.

The flower pondered, but appeared to have no conclusive answer. “Anger is easier to feel than love though, isn’t it?”

“No,” Papyrus replied, sitting down in front of his friend, “it’s really easy to feel love, actually. I mean, I love my brother a lot, even if he’s been super distant lately. And I love both Frisk and Undyne. They’re my friends and family. Sometimes when I get into those really sad moods, I wonder if they actually love me back, but I never stop loving them.” He dug the shovel into the ground slightly, looking for something to keep his hands occupied with. “I think if you really care about someone, love just kind of happens, just like anger happens if you really don’t like something.” He shrugged, giving Flowey an uncertain smile.

“I suppose,” was the flower’s response, as lame as it was. “Papyrus, I want you to know something, okay?”

“Alright, Flowey. What is it?”

He frowned. “I might have a little chunk of a soul, and I might be agreeing to come up to the Surface with you, but don’t be surprised when I eventually end up hurting someone. If I end up hurting you.”

Papyrus’s smile never shifted from his face. “I said I’d help you Flowey, how many times do I have to say it? Everyone makes mistakes, but they still deserve to get another chance! Some people just make worse mistakes than others.” Okay, so his smile might have wavered somewhat, but the point was that it still remained.

“And I already told you that you’re really looking to get yourself killed, so I suppose we must be in agreement on these points,” Flowey grumbled. “No one’s going to be happy with me coming up to the Surface, but I’ve also concluded that you don’t care about that, either.”

“Nope!” he grinned. “I’m dead set on getting you back to the Surface and helping you! There’s no stopping me, nyeh heh!”

“Golly, you’re something else. Maybe I should upgrade you from ‘stupid idiot’ to ‘brainless moron’.”

“Whatever, Flowey. Get in the flowerpot, now! You already said you would!”

Even as Papyrus dug the flower out of the ground and placed him into the pot, the plant kept grumbling about his situation, muttering about how stupid the skeleton was and how he would regret taking him to the Surface with him. Even as he was safely planted within the confines of the flowerpot and Papyrus was hugging said pot to his body, Flowey continued his irritated ranting.

“Lighten up, Flowey!” Papyrus joked, walking back into Toriel’s old home. “You’re with the Great Papyrus, after all! There should be no complaints!” He grinned, his good mood having returned. He hadn’t actually called himself that in almost two years, not since his depressive fits began hitting him.

“Yeah, how wonderful,” the flower snarked as they began their descent down into the basement. Deciding that his rant was getting him nowhere, he took a moment to consider Papyrus’ odd choice in clothing. This action of course led him to only further frustration. “ _Why_ are you only wearing an oversized sweater?”

“What?” the skeleton laughed. “There was nothing else that fit! Besides, it covers my pelvis, doesn’t it? So what’s the point of pants?”

Flowey groaned. This was going to be a long journey, he could feel it.


	4. Chapter 4

“You know, this would go much faster if you just put me back in the ground and let me teleport,” Flowey complained for the sake of complaining.

“You can’t teleport someone else with you though, can you?” Papyrus questioned in return.

“Well no, but I figure if your _brother_ ,” he spat the word out vehemently, “can teleport, then you must be able to, as well.”

“Probably,” Papyrus considered, “but I don’t know how. Sans’ magic is a lot stronger than mine anyways.”

He continued trudging through the snow. They had already passed through Snowdin Forest, and all that was left was to make it through the mass amounts of puzzles and icy spots before making it into what was once a bustling little town. So far there had been no sign of the humans. Considering that none of the puzzles in Snowdin Hills had been solved yet, they could only go with Flowey’s theory that the humans had gotten lost and were still in the forest. Papyrus didn’t blame them, since the well-worn path that had once led from the Ruins to the Hills had disappeared within the two years of its misuse. He and Flowey had only made it through so quickly since Papyrus had traveled the path almost every day for years during his time living in the Underground.

“I’d try teaching you, but I’m sure the magic I have as a plant is a lot different from your guys’ blue magic,” Flowey stated absentmindedly, his wary attention more focused on Papyrus’ footing as he attempted to traverse a particularly large icy patch leading off a cliff. “What exactly are you trying to do here?” he questioned, beginning to worry that this was going to end up leading to his death.

“No one’s ever bothered solving this puzzle except for Frisk, so all of us on sentry duty always just leapt over to the other side of the cliff!”

Flowey was torn between fearing even more for his life and being irritated over the idiocy of Snowdin’s sentries. Irritancy ended up winning over after Papyrus suddenly took the leap over the gap, safely making it to the other cliff side without even stumbling. By now though, Flowey figured there wasn’t even a point in mentioning just how _stupid_ everything about that puzzle was. He was dreading making it to Hotland if any of the puzzles there even still worked.

As Papyrus continued on his way through Snowdin Hills, Flowey found himself taking the area in. Spending all of his time solely in the Ruins prevented him from ever exploring anywhere else. Sure, he left the area quite often back before all of the monsters had left the Underground, but he never stuck around long enough to do something as pointless as admiring the scenery. He had always been plotting; trying to keep himself entertained as much as he possibly could without a soul. Being able to teleport and sense other monsters all throughout the Underground only further ensured that he never bothered to look over anything. Then again, even now he found the task of “taking it all in” to be quite monotonous.

It was snowing, as he figured must not have been unusual, the area itself being named _Snowdin_. Asgore had always been a little uncreative, and he could only curse the monster for passing down this particular trait to him. Then again, now that he thought about it, he didn’t actually _have_ to go by the name Flowey; the timelines reset often enough that he’d easily be able to get away with a name change. Changing his name just didn’t feel right anymore, though. While he never paid great attention to how much time went by both before and after Frisk showed up, he figured the consecutive amount of the time he had spent in all of the different timelines had to surpass centuries. Perhaps even longer. After having used the name Flowey for so long, it had somehow ended up growing on him, despite him knowing how terrible of a name it was.

He grumbled to himself as Papyrus passed a particularly large area, a sentry station located directly in the middle. Why was he even thinking about all of this? He hadn’t related himself to his fathe—er, Asgore, in ages. Glancing up at the skeleton, who was now cheerfully humming to himself, he couldn’t decide if he wanted to blame _him_ for this, or that little chunk of soul that had recently begun making him feel all of this nonsense.

They began crossing the large bridge leading into town, Flowey warily refusing to gaze over the edge as they went. Papyrus might have successfully leapt over numerous ridges and crossed over several other bridges, but that did nothing to change the fact that he still didn’t trust the idiot not to screw something up. Being stuck in a flowerpot without a majority of his powers (plus having that bit of soul that he was quickly growing to despise), he was beginning to fear that death was around every corner. If Papyrus took one wrong step, Flowey would be unable to save himself as they both tumbled down.

Papyrus took the final step off of the bridge and into Snowdin, Flowey breathing a giant sigh of relief. They were safe for now. There was hardly anything in the upcoming Waterfall that could take them out like the drops they could have taken just then. Sensing the flower’s decreasing nervousness, Papyrus laughed to himself, which of course sent an instant glare his way from his flower companion.

“You keep it up and I’m heading straight back to the Ruins,” he threatened, more than a little irritated.

“I’m sorry,” Papyrus grinned down at him. “I’ve just never seen anyone so terrified of going through the Hills like that before. Are you afraid of heights?”

“I’m not afraid of anything, you idiot,” he bluffed. He had been about to retort that he couldn’t feel anything, but deflated at the recurring realization that he could, in fact, feel such a thing now. The thought of having a whole soul and being able to _properly_ experience all of these emotions would have filled him with dread. He smirked, smug. Dread, thankfully, appeared to be too strong a form of fear for him to experience.

“I’m not _that_ stupid, Flowey!” Papyrus continued, having stopped near the sign that read _Welcome to Snowdin!_ “I’m actually really good at telling how people feel!”

Flowey scoffed, smug smile still plastered on his face. “But you still couldn’t tell I was tricking you before the Barrier broke?”

His smile widened as he saw the sweat forming along Papyrus’ brow. Two years might have passed and made the skeleton a sporadic mess of excitement and depression, but he could still make him nervous and flustered with practiced ease.

“I mean, you were suspicious and stuff, but you also seemed so nice, and I wanted to trust you!” he spouted out, doing his best to keep grinning.

“You want to trust everyone. That’s why you got taken advantage of so much in the past,” he reminded him, knowing it would be futile. It was obvious he couldn’t make someone remember something from other timelines. Papyrus was just the only monster who never actively questioned Flowey’s constant remarks.

The skeleton’s grin finally faltered, uncertainty taking over his expression. “I know, but I really want to keep believing in everyone. Everyone can be a better person; they just have to try,” he repeated, more to himself than to the flower.

Flowey sighed. He had played mind games with Papyrus in the past, but he had been both soulless and without morals back then. Now, he was finding that there was little fun in freaking the skeleton out and making him question himself like this. It was a shame too, as mind games with his “friend” were one of his favorite past times.

Oh, and now guilt was working its way in. These past two years had been nothing but guilt for him. How had he so quickly forgotten that? What a burden all of these feelings were.

“Listen, let’s just forget about that for now,” Flowey muttered. He had to remedy this blasted guilt _somehow_ ; he just refused to admit that he’d done anything wrong. Seriously, what was the point of emotions if they conflicted so often like this? “We should take a break at your house.”

“Oh, I guess,” was Papyrus’ response, his tone subdued.

Taking a break was probably the best for the skeleton, Flowey concluded. With how those humans had been treating him, and taking the numerous injuries that had recently been healed into account, the flower doubted that Papyrus had had a proper time to rest in quite a while. They’d already made it this far into their little journey; he didn’t need Papyrus passing out in the middle of Waterfall and drowning them both just because he hadn’t rested in ages.

The skeleton trudged his way through Snowdin, the town now quiet and empty without all of its former residents. The further in the two went, the more Flowey noticed Papyrus’ mood dropping. It made sense, considering the skeleton was so obviously lonely. Seeing his hometown—once a bustling, nearly over-populated community—deserted such as this likely did nothing to quell that feeling. Vaguely, he wondered how much worse the skeleton’s mood would get once they reached his old home.

He knew that Papyrus had been put through quite a taxing situation, being kidnapped and beaten by those humans. While Flowey wasn’t very experienced in the feeling department, he knew enough to tell that Papyrus had to be both physically and emotionally drained by this point. The constant reminder that those humans were still out there in Snowdin Forest would not be helping the matter, either.

They reached the opposite edge of Snowdin, Papyrus’ gaze resolutely glued to the ground he walked on. For a brief moment, Flowey was sure the skeleton would walk straight past his old home, but he stopped just before it. Papyrus’ sight rose so he could properly take in the house. Sans’ mailbox was still stuffed with envelopes, the paper deteriorating from the constant drenching of Snowdin’s never-ending snow.

“Are we going in?” Flowey urged him. There was no way he was letting the skeleton move on to Waterfall without resting first.

Papyrus nodded. He walked up to the door, testing the handle and finding it locked. Leaning down to reach under the porch steps, he fished out a key. Flowey found himself honestly impressed over this, not having expected the skeleton brothers to have thought of something like an extra key. Though, as much as he hated to admit it, he knew Papyrus was too organized to _not_ have thought of something like this. It was even less surprising that it was still down here, since none of the inhabitants actually took much with them up to the Surface. What would the skeleton brothers do with an old, useless key on the Surface, anyways?

He dragged himself out of his thoughts as Papyrus unlocked the front door and went inside. As expected, he shut and locked the door, kicking off his boots and setting the key on the nearby kitchen counter. Instinctively, he attempted to flick on the kitchen lights, only to be met by obvious failure. Seeing as there had been no one around to maintain the Core for over two years, its shutdown had been inevitable. Therefore, the Underground was left without power. Flowey knew he had informed Papyrus about the Core’s shutdown, though he also knew the skeleton hadn’t even thought about that before at least _trying_ to get some light in the house.

A quiet sigh was heard from the skeleton as he walked over to the couch in the living room. In some attempt to get some light into the room, he opened the blinds of the window besides the couch. With that done, he dragged the small table near the wall over so that it was right beside the couch, setting Flowey onto it. Seeing as his flowerpot was less likely to tip over this way, the plant had to admit that the skeleton was coming up with a surprising amount of practical solutions that day. After securing Flowey on the table, Papyrus then dropped himself onto the couch, laying down so that his head was resting on the side where Flowey and the table were located.

They sat there for a good while, Flowey wondering if Papyrus was going to fall asleep just like that. Figuring that this might be the case, he took to staring out the window he sat in front of, watching the light snowfall. From where he was, he had a good view of Snowdin’s streets. If the humans ever found their way out of the forest and made it this far, he’d hopefully be able to see them in time to get Papyrus up and in hiding.

Speaking of the humans, Papyrus had said very little about what exactly the humans had done to him. It was interesting, considering that in the past the skeleton had more-or-less dumped all of his worries onto Flowey whenever he had the chance. His excuse had always been that he was too afraid to tell Sans, since he didn’t want his brother fretting over him when he had his own problems to worry about. Undyne was a terrible choice for spilling his concerns out to as well, as even Flowey could see that she would react too strongly to anything Papyrus told her. Back before Frisk had fallen into the Underground, Sans, Undyne, and Flowey were all Papyrus had, so his only option had been to go to the flower with his issues.

Now, it appeared that the skeleton seemed fit to remain silent. Then again, hadn’t he already mentioned how he doubted that any his friends and family loved him anymore? While Flowey had no idea what the heck was going on with everyone up on the Surface, it was possible that Papyrus could be viewing him as the only person he had left. He frowned. A monster would have to be in quite the screwy situation for the mostly soulless flower to be their last hope. That explained why Papyrus had been so desperate for Flowey to come back to the Surface with him, though.

Curiosity gnawing at him, he decided it was time to get some confessions out of the skeleton. As much as he had always hated being Papyrus’ go-to for things such as this, he just had to know how everything had managed to go so terribly _wrong_ for him after the monsters had all been freed. Flowey thought that things such as the skeleton’s ever present loneliness issue would be solved once Frisk brought everyone together and got them to the Surface.

“Hey Papyrus, would you mind telling me something?” he queried, moving his gaze from the window to the skeleton laying on the couch.

“Tell you what?” Papyrus mumbled, sounding as though he had been on the verge of falling asleep.

“What’s been going on with everyone on the Surface?”

For a moment, he couldn’t tell if Papyrus would answer him or not. Maybe he’d fallen asleep and Flowey would have to wait until he woke back up, but then he began moving. He sat up, unconsciously rubbing his left arm as he turned to face the flower beside him.

“What do you mean?” he questioned back. “Nothing’s really changed.”

“Are you sure?” Flowey pressed on, refusing to let Papyrus dodge the issue.

“Sans and Toriel got married,” Papyrus didn’t seem to notice Flowey wince at that fact, “and they adopted Frisk. Toriel’s a teacher now, and Frisk goes to the same school she works at. Oh!” he perked up slightly. “Undyne and Dr. Alphys live together, too! They haven’t gotten married yet, though. I really think they should, but they always get really flustered about that kind of stuff.”

Flowey gave him an irritated look. This wasn’t what he wanted to hear about. “What about you?” he urged. “Do you live with your brother still?”

What little pep Papyrus had gained appeared to drain out of him in an instant. “No,” he murmured. “I live by myself.”

That brought Flowey pause. That certainly hadn’t been what he expected to hear, but it made sense, taking Papyrus’ frequent mood shifts into consideration.

“But why? I figured you and the—” don’t insult his brother right now, that might not end well, “and _your brother_ were inseparable.”

Once again, Flowey was met with a long pause before the skeleton responded to him. “I don’t want to talk about this, Flowey,” he commented, staring resolutely at the blank television.

“It’s good to talk about these things, though. Isn’t that what you told me in the past?”

Papyrus shrugged. “I know, but I’m sure you have your own problems. You don’t need me weighing you down like this.”

Ah, so that was it. It would appear that Flowey had been correct in his original assumption. Without having numerous friends and family to fall back on, Papyrus was avoiding spilling out his concerns to the only person he thought he had left.

“What’s so bad about telling me what’s bothering you?” Flowey continued, pushing the skeleton to just spill it.

“I don’t want to be a burden to you. I was to Sans and Undyne and everyone else. I think that’s why they don’t want me around anymore.” He glanced at Flowey momentarily before averting his gaze once more. “I thought that maybe if I could help you out, you’d want to keep being my friend, and not leave me like everyone else.” He curled up on himself, trying to hide the tears stinging the corners of his eye sockets. “But I’d understand if you still don’t want me around.”

Flowey glared across the room, looking at nothing in particular. “What did they all tell you?”

Papyrus sniffled, wiping his eyes. “Sans and I lived together for a little while, but after he married Toriel, they wanted to start a real family. I overheard them talking about me, and they were saying how it’d be weird if I was living with them and stuff.” He looked at Flowey, though his friend was still staring across the room. “I actually thought it’d be really cool if I lived by myself. I thought I’d still get to visit everyone a lot like I always used to with you and Undyne, but I don’t know. No one ever wants me around.”

Noticing that he was going to stop right there, Flowey urged him on. “Did they say why they didn’t want you around?”

“Most of the time they said they were busy, but there were a lot of times where they weren’t and they still didn’t want me over. No one ever seems to want to come over to my house either; I don’t know why. And I started thinking about some things you and a bunch of other monsters have told me before; about how I’m annoying and a burden. I started thinking that you guys might be telling the truth, because after everyone was happy and started families, they wanted nothing to do with me.”

Once he finished, Flowey didn’t know what to say. In past timelines he had manipulated events to cause scenarios like this to happen, but he had never expected this to occur _naturally_. Even if he _hated_ that smiley trash bag’s nonexistent guts, he knew that the stocky skeleton loved his brother dearly and wouldn’t purposefully hurt him like this. Did he not realize that a majority of his younger brother’s problems stemmed from being lonely? Leaving him to live by himself with little to no contact sounded like an idiotic idea. Of course, Flowey knew that he didn’t have the whole story here, but he’d take any excuse possible to further his grudge against the older of the two skeleton brothers.

“I don’t know, Papyrus. Have you tried talking to anyone about this?” He inwardly groaned at himself. What a _stupid_ question. Papyrus had only ever gone to him about his problems; of course he hadn’t tried talking to anyone.

“No.”

“Shocking,” Flowey snarked absentmindedly, still annoyed at himself.

“I’m sorry,” Papyrus mumbled in return, curling further in on himself.

Needing to stem his growing aggravation, Flowey hung his head, this time audibly groaning. “I’ll whack your brother hard enough to dust him next time I see him, I swear.”

“Please don’t do that, Flowey.” Papyrus paused. “It’d be kind of hard to convince everyone you’ve _cleaned_ up your act if you _dust_ my brother.”

Flowey’s annoyed, internal grumbling stopped instantly as he turned to stare at Papyrus. There was a small smile on the skeleton’s face.

“Did you just _joke_ about that?” he asked, incredulously.

Papyrus instantly looked away, embarrassed. “We were getting really dramatic.” His face was rapidly lighting up, as much as he tried to hide it. “Sans would always throw jokes around whenever Undyne, Dr. Alphys, or I got too worked up like that.”

The flower scoffed. “When _isn’t_ your brother telling jokes?”

“I mean, he’d always do it on purpose to throw us off topic. I know that it usually works, so I thought trying it now would be a good idea, but that was really morbid. I’m sorry.”

Flowey held back the giggle he felt building up, seeing Papyrus desperately trying to hide his growing embarrassment.

“You’ve always been really weird about jokes. You know that, right?” he pointed out, allowing himself a quick snicker.

“Just pretend it never happened,” Papyrus nearly groaned. “You can’t even call it a joke. It was really, really bad.”

“Golly, you’re something else,” Flowey commented, smirking. “All the bad jokes your brother makes must be wearing off on you!”

Papyrus dramatically threw himself back into the couch, laying down. “I’m going to waste my time sleeping now! I hope you don’t want to talk about this stuff anymore!” he shouted over Flowey, who had begun snickering at him again.

“Fine, but I’m still not satisfied with everything you told me!” Flowey replied in a singsong voice. “We can talk more when you wake up!”

“Great! Good night!” Papyrus continued shouting over him, covering his face even as he got in a more comfortable position to sleep in.

Flowey’s smirk remained as he decided he’d try sleeping as well. No harm would come of it after all. Once they got up later, he figured he’d give Papyrus some time to reach Waterfall before he started questioning him about what those four humans had done to him. He had dealt with the emotional issues coming from the skeleton’s friends and family; next it would be time to tackle the more physical problems. If he was going to end up stuck with the skeleton until the next true reset, then so be it. He’d make his remaining time less depressing, even if it meant having to deal with Papyrus dumping all of his issues onto him yet again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a question: Do you guys think I should add Sans/Toriel as a tag, since it's mentioned here and all? Or should I just leave the tags as they are since it's not the main focus of the story? I'm obviously new here, so I don't know the best way to tag everything yet.


	5. Chapter 5

Papyrus was still asleep when Flowey found himself waking up, which he supposed was unusual. It was either an indicator that Papyrus had been even more exhausted than even Flowey had suspected, or something had woken Flowey up early for whatever reason. He knew for a fact that even if someone was able to get the skeleton to go to sleep, he’d never actually sleep for a full eight hours. Getting the skeleton to fall asleep and stay asleep was near impossible. Considering how Flowey actually felt tired for once after waking up, he figured that it was his latter suspicion. Over his many, repeated years of life, he knew himself to be a sound sleeper, so waking up prematurely like this gave him cause to worry.

“Hey, Papyrus, get up,” he muttered absentmindedly, staring intently out the window he was in front of. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary in the streets, so—

A faint crash jolted him out of his thoughts. Scratch that, something was definitely out of the ordinary.

“ _Papyrus_!” he stressed, raising his voice. How difficult could it be to wake him up? He never slept; shouldn’t he be a light sleeper?

The skeleton slept on as though Flowey hadn’t said a word, much to his annoyance. There shouldn’t have been _any_ sort of crashing sounds coming from outside, not with all residents of the Underground being absent aside from himself and Papyrus.

“You better wake up _now_ , Papyrus. Those disgusting humans are out there!” he kept trying, shouting louder still.

Hearing distant, muffled voices now, he felt panic filtering in. If those humans found them now, they would be screwed. Being stuck in this flower pot limited him from being able to use any of his regular magic. No large vines, no teleportation, nothing. Papyrus might have had access to some incredibly strong magic (if he so chose to acknowledge it, which Flowey knew he rarely did), but he knew that the skeleton would be completely useless. Unless he could convince Papyrus to just use his freaking magic and hurt someone, there was no hope for them. They had to leave now before the humans figured out that they were there. Waterfall was one giant maze, even more so than Snowdin Forest had become. They could for sure lose the humans there and not have to worry anymore. First though, they needed to _get_ to Waterfall.

“Wake _up,_ you idiot!” he nearly screeched, smacking his head against Papyrus’ skull. Not that it _did_ much. Physically, he was much too weak to do anything harmful. “If the humans catch us, _I’m_ the one who’s probably going to die!”

No more noises could be heard from outside, leading Flowey to infer that the humans were in a nearby building. They were likely either searching for a proper place to take shelter from Snowdin’s climate, or looking for something of “great importance”. Something like the skeleton that they had mistakenly assumed knew of some fantastic device that the monsters might have left down here.

“Get up!” How was he sleeping through all of this shouting? What was _wrong_ with this monster’s sleep patterns? “Papyrus, I swear to god I am going to _kill_ you for this!”

If he kept this up, the humans would surely hear him as they approached their end of Snowdin. It wasn’t like he could hide either, as he had been set directly in front of the window. Of all the _stupid_ decisions the skeleton could have made… Forget that Flowey had been the one to suggest that they stop to rest in Snowdin in the first place.

Against all odds, the skeleton slowly shifted in place, sitting up.

“Thank god! Papyrus, you better get up _now_ , because those humans are right out there. We have to get to Waterfall!” he urged, his tone hurried.

Papyrus’ face held a look of confusion as he stared dazedly at the flower beside him. It would seem that he was taking a moment to comprehend why he was back in his house in the Underground with a flower screaming in his face.

“Are you going to get up, or do I have to shout at you some more? Let’s go!” Flowey knew that by this point his face had shifted into something hellish, as was prone to happening when he was trying to make a point to others. Who cared if Papyrus found it frightening, though? If it would get the skeleton on his feet and out of there, he wouldn’t worry about it.

“Flowey? What’s going on?” he asked, clearly still half asleep. Flowey sincerely hoped that the skeleton was at least coherent enough to remember why he was even back in the Underground with his old flower friend.

“The humans are in Snowdin!” Flowey hissed, attempting to keep his voice low yet still get his anger across. “We need to leave before they find us here!”

That appeared to be enough to snap Papyrus awake, as his eye sockets widened in shock. Before the flower even knew what happened, the skeleton had leaped off the couch, grabbing the flowerpot Flowey resided in with him.

“How close are they? Are they right outside?” Papyrus questioned, panic replacing the tired tone his voice had previously held.

“They’re in a building nearby I think, but we should hurry and go before they _do_ get here!” Flowey stressed, eyes glued to the front door as Papyrus threw his boots back on.

“Okay, but what if they see us leaving?” the skeleton continued, readjusting his scarf so that it wasn’t on the verge of sliding off his neck anymore. “Should we leave through the back?”

Flowey threw his attention from the front door back to Papyrus, staring up at him. “There’s a back entrance here?” he asked, incredulous. Since when? After all of his time knowing the skeleton brothers, he figured that he would have found out about a back entrance. Perhaps he really _should_ have paid more attention to the scenery during all of those different timelines.

“No, but we can take the windows out!” Papyrus replied, tense. He hugged the flowerpot closer to himself, shaking slightly.

The flower hung his head in exasperation. Really, he should have known better, seeing as Papyrus was notorious for throwing people for a loop like that.

“I don’t see any windows in the back down here. Do you expect us to jump down from the second floor?” he sneered. All he wanted at that point was for Papyrus to get his boney butt in gear and get the hell out of there.

“Well, you see—”

The sound of something heavy colliding with the front door cut him off, both monsters jumping violently at the sudden intrusion. Though the door remained in place, Flowey felt little comfort at the new turn of events.

“Did you hear that?” came the voice of one of the humans right outside the door.

Papyrus froze on the spot, his shaking only intensifying. He stared at the door before him, unmoving. Flowey’s panic only rose, figuring that this was where his role in the current timeline ended.

“ _Papyrus get the hell out of here_!” he practically screamed, making the skeleton in question jump once again. That did the trick, as Papyrus didn’t even say another word, turning and sprinting for the stairs on the other side of the living room.

Another thump was heard against the door as the two monsters ascended to the upper floor. Flowey was certain that the door wouldn’t hold up after the second slam, but a quick glance back revealed that it was still standing, a line of bones having been conjured to barricade the entranceway. A wave of some emotion flooded through him at this realization, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was at that moment. He only knew that it was directed at the skeleton who had thought to put the barricade up in the first place.

He heard faint complaining and shouting from outside, likely the humans arguing over getting inside of the house, but it was cut off as Papyrus dashed into his old room and slammed the door shut. Another barricade made of bones was conjured in front of the door. At the same time, another crash was heard from downstairs, the sound of the front door breaking down following it. At the same time, something smashed to the ground directly in front of them, startling Flowey out of his thoughts. As he brought his attention back to what Papyrus was doing, he saw that the skeleton had knocked his old computer aside before shoving the desk away from the window.

“We’re seriously jumping out the window?” Flowey gawked, though Papyrus paid him no attention, likely running on autopilot by now.

The humans had entered the house, as the flower could now hear voices and shouting from the first floor, stomping accompanied by various smashing sounds. One set of stomps in particular sounded like it was heading up the stairs. As much as he hated the idea of jumping out of the window, he knew it was their only option out.

With the window unlatched and opened, Papyrus took a good grip on the flowerpot in his left arm, sitting on the windowsill with his legs hanging out. Since Flowey had no idea as to how Papyrus planned on accomplishing this without any broken bones or smashed flower petals, he refused to look down, instead watching Papyrus’ movements as he took the leap. Their fall stopped almost as soon as it began, the skeleton raising his right hand as blue magic appeared, turning his own soul blue and keeping himself in the air. Once he had a strong hold on himself, he lowered his hand, and by proxy, his soul, gently setting himself to the ground below.

While Flowey was still recovering from the shock of having dropped out of a second floor window, he had enough sense to kick himself over not having thought of Papyrus’ blue magic. To be honest, he never even knew that the skeleton brothers could use their blue magic on themselves until now. There wasn’t much time for him to continue pondering about the idea though, as Papyrus had already taken off in a sprint towards the cave leading into Waterfall, the long stretch of nearly frozen river flying by as they closed in on the next area.

Papyrus didn’t stop running until they had entered Waterfall and were a good ways into the vast cavern, far enough that the mazelike nature of the area would throw the humans off of their trail if they attempted to take chase of the two monsters. The skeleton apparently knew the quickest way through Waterfall, as he took only a few leaps over different sections of water and lowered himself down a couple waterfalls with his blue magic before finding himself in the garbage dump. Flowey knew from experience that the dump was a particularly far point from Snowdin, and it would take the humans quite a while to catch up if they weren’t still investigating the house in Snowdin.

After lowering himself down one final waterfall, Papyrus collapsed onto the small patch of flowers growing at the edge of the dump, worn out from his long trek. Flowey found himself on the verge of being dumped out of his flowerpot as Papyrus hugged it to himself with an almost vice-like grip. Considering he had just gotten the two of them out of a potentially fatal encounter with the humans, Flowey figured he’d at least give the skeleton this break. He highly doubted that the humans would even be able to catch up with them by that point, anyways.

“Well, I guess I’m impressed, Pap,” he muttered. As expected, he didn’t receive a response from the skeleton, still attempting to catch his breath. “I thought for sure we were dead back there. You and your brother never told me your guys’ blue magic worked like that, you know. I’ve never seen anyone use their own magic on their self before.” He gave a nervous chuckle. “And golly, you sure can run fast. No wonder you’ve never bothered learning how to teleport.”

Flowey understood that he was rambling, talking for the sake of talking, though it certainly helped to ease his nerves over the situation they had just escaped from.

“Thanks,” Papyrus spluttered out. Had it been any other moment, Flowey knew the skeleton would have been gushing in excitement over any praise from his good…“friend”, and he vaguely wondered if the praise had even truly registered with him, as worn out and depleted as he was at the moment.

“Well, I doubt the humans will be catching up with us any time soon. You really made sure of that, didn’t you?” he continued, giving another nervous chuckle. He noticed that he’d been doing that more often lately. It was a habit he wasn’t necessarily fond of having developed.

Growing tired of the awkward, one-sided conversation, Flowey decided that it’d be best to just quiet down until Papyrus was coherent enough to properly respond to him. He laid his head down, tired of holding it up off the skeleton’s chest, in an attempt to get a few moments rest.

It was a while before either of them actually moved again. Flowey wasn’t certain of how long they spent laying in the small flower patch, though Papyrus sat up after recovering from his long sprint sooner than he would have thought. While the skeleton’s grip on the flowerpot wasn’t as strong as it originally had been, he still hugged it tightly to himself, as though Flowey was acting as his only lifeline. In a way, Flowey figured that that could have been the case, taking everything that Papyrus had told him earlier into consideration.

“So you think we lost them?” the skeleton asked tentatively.

“No, I _know_ we lost them. By this point they can only reach us by pure luck. You know how easy it is for someone to get lost here.”

Papyrus pondered that statement for a moment, adjusting his hold on the flowerpot.

“I thought they were going to capture us. I panicked. I guess it’s a good thing Undyne taught me the quickest way through Waterfall.” He gave his friend a light smile, though Flowey turned his head away in a huff.

“Well, we should move on to Hotland if you’re up for it. The further away we can get from the humans, the better,” he informed the skeleton, looking further down the garbage dump.

Papyrus shifted from his seat in the flower patch, rising to stand. Over all, Flowey could feel the skeleton shaking, though it was nowhere near as violent as it had been back in Snowdin. It was to be expected, of course, for him to come out of the experience as rattled as he was. After all, while Flowey still didn’t know much about what the humans had done to him, he had a good enough idea based off what little Papyrus had told him already. Being as far as possible from those four would be better for the skeleton’s psyche, if Flowey knew anything about how emotions worked in beings with souls.

The skeleton took a few shaky steps forward, stepping onto the damp, nearly flooded ground of the garbage dump. How the small flower patch had been able to grow in such a place was beyond Flowey, though he supposed that it was convenient for times like these, where someone needed to just rest. Why someone would ever need to rest in the dump was _also_ beyond him, though he didn’t bother to put much thought into it, seeing as how it had just happened.

Stumbling through the junk littered around the area, shifting aside small piles as they blocked the way, the two advanced towards the end of the dump. Along the way, Papyrus picked up some discarded food he came across, much to Flowey’s disgust. While he knew that the skeleton had had nothing to eat in quite a while, he was certain that there had to be better food left out in the Underground than whatever happened to float down into those piles of garbage.

“You’re not going to eat that, are you?” he practically hissed.

“I don’t want to, but my magic reserves are getting really low. I haven’t eaten anything since those humans kidnapped me,” he responded sheepishly, averting his gaze to the side.

“That’s disgusting. Isn’t there anything better?”

Papyrus shrugged, damp candy bars still clutched in his hand as he carried Flowey with his other arm.

“No one’s been down here for two years. I don’t think any of the food I find is going to be good.” He paused, bringing his gaze back to the flower. “Don’t you need to eat anything?”

Flowey scoffed. “I’m a _flower_. I don’t need to eat anything! This body isn’t even a natural monster body. Water is more than enough to keep me going,” he sneered.

With that, Papyrus’ pace slowed until he stopped at the cavern’s exit, leaning slightly against the rocky walls.

“Do you want some water? There’s plenty of it right here!”

The flower groaned. He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Yeah, because I really want to drink this nasty garbage water.”

“Okay! Here you go!” he exclaimed hurriedly, as though he was desperate to remedy the mistake he had made in not offering his friend food earlier.

“No, wait!” Too late, the flower pot had been dumped into the water flooding the ground. “This is disgusting! Get me out of here, you idiot!”

Even as Papyrus lifted him out of the water, he could feel his roots sucking up everything that had managed to pour its way in. Sure, he had been needing some water, but there were plenty of other places to get it besides the garbage dump. They were in _Waterfall_ , for god’s sake.

“ _Why_?” was all he stressed, glaring pointedly at the skeleton grinning at him. When Papyrus began quietly chuckling to himself, Flowey felt his glare harden. “You did that on purpose, you moron! You knew exactly what you were doing!”

The skeleton began openly laughing at that point, the flower’s glare having no effect on him.

“I should kill you where you stand,” Flowey muttered in disbelief, conflicted emotions running through him over this. “You’re not allowed to hang out with your brother anymore.”

Papyrus’ laughing died down, though he still held a grin on his face.

“I think it’s too late for that. We stopped hanging out a while ago.” He shrugged again, grin wavering.

Flowey groaned, unable to decide if he wanted the skeleton in a good, joking mood, or his now familiar lonely, depressive mood. One day he would get these emotions straightened out, as broken and incomplete as they were. As it stood now, they conflicted too often for him to get a good sense of how he actually felt, leaving him confused a majority of the time.

“Whatever. Let’s just get out of here. I’m going to have nasty garbage water flowing through me for god knows how long now,” he sighed, tossing his head back.

Papyrus obliged him, remaining silent. He walked the rest of the way through the cavern and out of the garbage dump, the main caverns of Waterfall coming back into sight. They were now standing in front of a small pond, five different paths set before them. At the sight of these, the skeleton perked back up.

“Hey, Undyne’s old house is right by here!” he exclaimed. “Can we go check it out?”

Seeing as he was facing away from Papyrus at the moment, he knew that the skeleton wouldn’t be able to see him rolling his eyes, though he figured that humoring him wouldn’t hurt them too bad. Then again, allowing the skeleton to do what he wanted _was_ how he had ended up being dunked into that disgusting water, but he could see no issue with looking at the old home of the once captain of the Royal Guard.

“Yeah, fine,” he grumbled, still refusing to look at Papyrus.

The skeleton shouted a quick word of thanks before excitedly launching off towards his old friend’s home. With Papyrus’ moods as sporadic as they were, Flowey was beginning to suspect that perhaps being bombarded by conflicting emotions was something natural that everyone experienced. Or maybe it was some sort of defect. Maybe monsters like them only got this way when there was something wrong with them. This wouldn’t shock him much, considering that there was definitely something wrong with both him and the skeleton who had attached himself to him.

He stopped there, taking that thought into consideration. A smile crept onto his face, as much as he hated it. It felt weird to even contemplate the idea that he and Papyrus might be good for each other. If he had hands (or access to his stronger vines, preferably), he’d smack himself for such a thought. Just because his broken emotions were making him humor the skeleton and come up to the Surface, it did not mean he was going to regard him any differently than he had any other time before.

As Papyrus stopped before the charred remains of Undyne’s old home, Flowey turned to glance at him, seeing the tears building up at the corners of the skeleton’s eye sockets, still attempting to hold a sad smile on his face. The flower turned away once more. This was stupid. He was not going to let himself think about this anymore. Papyrus was just a means of him seeing the Surface and getting the boredom out of his systems. Nothing more.


	6. Chapter 6

Papyrus unconsciously hugged the flower pot tighter to himself, wrapping his left arm around it to accompany his right. He still clutched the three candy bars he had found in his left hand, and knew that he would have to eat them eventually. Resting alone was not enough for him to regain the magic he had lost during his mad dash to the end of Waterfall. Flowey had a point though, as Papyrus was _not_ thrilled with the idea of eating something he had picked up from the dump.

Ignoring that thought for now, he averted his gaze from what remained of Undyne’s old home. Why he had even wanted to return there in the first place was a mystery. Just walking through Snowdin and seeing his and Sans’ old home had been hard enough. There was no reason for visiting Undyne’s home to be any different of an experience. After all, Undyne had grown just as distant from him as Sans, Frisk, and everyone else had. Losing her had been even worse than the others, seeing as she was the first friend he ever made. She had been the first person to make him feel as though he could accomplish his dreams and actually be better than everyone else said he was.

There were those tears again, threatening to fall. He hated feeling like this all of the time; going back to how he had felt before making friends with Undyne, Flowey, and Frisk. Feeling so worthless and lonely. He took his left hand and wiped the tears away with the sleeve of his sweater. There was no need for any of that. Right now he needed to be strong and prove to Flowey that he could help him. Sitting there and crying in front of a burnt down house wasn’t going to solve anything. If Flowey didn’t think he was completely useless by now, having a breakdown right there would certainly be enough to fully convince him.

Hardening his resolve, he turned away and left, going back the way he had come from.

“Wait, you’re leaving already?” Flowey asked, clearly thrown off guard by this decision.

More tears were threatening to fall already, and he wiped them away once more. It didn’t matter what happened from then on, he wasn’t going to cry over any of this.

He sat down at the edge of the pond once he reached the large crossway again. All they had left to traverse were the dark passageways leading from the Temmie Village to the entrance of Hotland. While he wasn’t entirely comfortable with navigating those passages like Undyne had been, he still figured that he could get through them fairly quick, as they weren’t particularly long compared to the other caverns located in Waterfall.

Wiping a few remaining tears away, he set Flowey down and began to unwrap the candy bars he had taken from the garbage dump.

“What was even the point of visiting the place if you were just going to leave right away?” Flowey muttered.

“I just wanted to see it,” Papyrus murmured in response. “We can’t really hang out in a burnt down house anyways.”

He noticed Flowey hang his head, gazing into the shallow pond’s water.

“It just seemed really pointless, is all,” he commented again.

Papyrus shrugged, taking a bite of the soggy chocolate bar he had opened up. Instinctually, he cringed. It was just as gross as he had feared it would be. Perhaps Flowey was right when he said that there had to be better food out there. Still, it was too late to go back now, and he could feel his magic reserves getting quite low. It was better than nothing, even if he had to force it down just to benefit from it.

A light snickering was heard from beside him, and he saw Flowey glancing in his direction, a slight smirk on the flower’s face.

“What?” Flowey asked with a façade of innocence, noticing that the skeleton’s attention was on him. “Don’t give me that look. Watching this is satisfying after that idiotic stunt you pulled on me.”

He grimaced, knowing that the flower had a point. This was what he got for tossing him into that water in the first place. Still, Flowey’s amusement lifted his own spirits, even if only a little, and he felt that he could force a smile back onto his face. The smile disappeared the moment he tried taking another bite of the chocolate bar of course, the second bite being no less sickening than the first. This was going to be a long day.

“So,” Flowey began, still smirking in his direction, “since we’re probably going to be here awhile, why don’t you tell me some more about those humans.”

Papyrus froze mid-bite, lowering the chocolate bar as he gazed uncertainly at his friend.

“Um, what did you want to know? I thought I told you everything already,” he replied, nervousness lacing his voice. He could feel the sweat already forming along his brow. The humans were certainly not a subject that he wanted to talk about at the moment.

“Well yeah, I know they’re a bunch of violent idiots and think there’s some important _thing_ down here to find, but that’s all. What exactly did they do to you after they captured you?”

Oh yes, the sweat was forming hard, now. He could feel it dripping down the base of his skull. His body had already begun shaking again, despite his best efforts to quell the action only moments earlier. Why was it that Flowey always chose the most difficult topics possible to talk about?

“I don’t really want to talk about that anymore, Flowey,” he attempted to dissuade the flower, though he knew it would be to no avail. Flowey had a tendency to always get what he wanted somehow.

“We had this discussion back in Snowdin. Talking about these things is _good_ for you, isn’t it?” the flower pressed on, a knowing look on his face.

“No, really Flowey, I don’t want to talk about this, please,” he mumbled, pulling at the hem of his sleeve now, desperate to avoid facing the flower directly. He only began shaking harder as sweat continued forming along his brow.

Flowey was silent for a good few seconds, prompting Papyrus to risk taking a glance at him. The flower’s face was set in a hard frown, gazing down as though deep in thought.

Taking advantage of the flower’s momentary pause, Papyrus spoke up. “I already told you a lot about myself, you know.” He looked away from the flower again, staring resolutely at the half eaten chocolate bar still in his hand. “You haven’t really told me much about yourself though, and I think—”

“No,” was the flower’s immediate response, cutting in before Papyrus had even finished his statement.

The two sat in quiet contemplation, Papyrus taking another bite of his chocolate bar and cringing. As he forced the rest of the bar down, he attempted to break the silence that had fallen between them.

“I don’t know why you keep trying to make me talk about all of this stuff. I mean, I know you don’t really care about anything that’s happened to me,” he mumbled, “but still, I really do want to help you out.”

Flowey didn’t respond for some time, and Papyrus turned back towards the other two candy bars he held, opening one up. Trying to get the flower to open up to him was hopeless; he knew that much. Flowey liked him just as much as anyone else back on the Surface did, which Papyrus now knew wasn’t very much. Why he was even still trying was beyond him. Well, actually that was a lie. Even if he was a burden and no one liked him, he still wanted to help them out and make them feel better. It was just getting harder nowadays to believe that he could actually make a difference.

“No one can ‘help’ me, Papyrus,” Flowey finally told him. “I’ve been without a soul for too long. I’ve hurt and killed too many people to be ‘helped’. I’ve been like this for ages now. You can’t change anything about me.”

Papyrus didn’t say anything. He choked down his second candy bar and moved on to the third.

“If you think taking me to the Surface and being _nice_ to me is going to change anything, then you’re wrong. You’re just as big of an idiot as I thought you were.” He seemed to be on a roll, as he kept going. “I mean, no wonder everyone left you! You’re always in their way, trying to ‘help’ them like the bumbling idiot you are! They’re all probably up on the Surface thanking god that you’ve disappeared out of their lives. They don’t need to worry about poor, _useless_ Papyrus getting in their way anymore.” He smirked, his face having shifted into a vaguely familiar, hellish form. “You can’t help anyone, Papyrus. You can’t even help _yourself_ , and you think you can do anything about _me_? You’re an idiot, and you always will be. Just give up. I did.”

_Just give up. I did_.

He didn’t know if Flowey used that phrase on purpose, but he couldn’t dwell on it. The tears he had been trying so hard to hold in since the beginning of their journey finally let loose, and he dropped his last candy bar, bringing his hands up to try and stop the tears from flowing down his face. It didn’t matter though; it had started, and he couldn’t stop himself, as pathetic as he felt for being unable to do so.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped out, already sobbing. He didn’t know what he was apologizing for anymore, but it felt appropriate. Perhaps it was for being so pathetic. For letting go and crying in front of Flowey like this. “I’m sorry.”

He sat, curled in on himself, hiding his face in his arms as they hugged his knees closer. He had heard it all before. Flowey himself had told him things like that back before the Barrier had broken. Other residents of Snowdin would tell him similar things as he walked by. It had always hurt before, yes, but back then he never truly believed what they had told him. He always believed that it would get better. He still had Sans back then, after all, and just having his brother around was enough to make him feel better when he was down.

Being told all of that now—that he was a burden, that he was useless, that no one wanted anything to do with him—rang truer to him now more than ever. After all, even Sans had distanced himself from him. Just like Frisk and Undyne. Just like Flowey had been trying to do since day one; and here he was, dragging him through the Underground when the flower wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

He only began to sob even harder, finding it difficult to breathe. Still, he buried his head further into his arms. At this point, all he wanted to do was get away from everything. All he had to do was get Flowey out of the flowerpot so he could teleport back to his grove in the Ruins. Then Papyrus could remain there, waiting for the humans to arrive and do whatever. It didn’t matter what they planned to do anymore. Papyrus was useless to them and everyone else.

Something touched his leg lightly, momentarily pulling away before returning. It began to tentatively rub before pulling away once again. This time it touched his left arm, the one still hugging his knees to himself. He glanced over, bringing his right arm up to futilely wipe more tears from his eyes. There on his other arm was a small vine coming from the flowerpot beside him. Flowey turned away the moment Papyrus brought his head up, refusing to show his own face. The vine quickly retreated back into the flowerpot as Flowey lowered his head further.

Had Flowey been trying to comfort him? As ridiculous as it sounded, Papyrus didn’t know what else the flower could have been doing. He wiped more tears from his face, still failing at calming down his sobs. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he grabbed the flowerpot, hugging it to himself tightly once more. Flowey didn’t complain as Papyrus continued crying over him, for which he was thankful. It didn’t matter what the flower’s intentions had been, and he didn’t care that the flower wanted nothing to do with him; he desperately needed someone to hold on to in that moment.

It took longer than he would have liked to calm down enough to stop crying. He still let loose a few shuddering sobs, even as the tears had already stopped. During the entire incident, Flowey hadn’t said a single word, remaining complacent as Papyrus clutched his flowerpot to himself. Feeling too emotionally drained to even say anything to the flower, he wiped the last of his tears from his eyes, the sleeves of his sweater completely soaked.

Glancing down, he noticed that his last candy bar had fallen into the pond he sat in front of, resting near the bottom of the pool. There was no way he was even going to attempt retrieving and eating it now, not that it was much of a loss. He would just have to move on and hopefully find something else in Hotland.

Adjusting himself, he began to stand on shaky legs. Flowey finally turned to face him after this action, his face solemn. Papyrus looked down at him, contemplating whether he should ask Flowey if he still wanted to come to the Surface with him, or if he should forget it and just plant him back into the ground, no questions asked. There was no need to keep dragging the flower around with him; not if Flowey truly wanted to get away from him.

Flowey must have been able to figure out his intentions, as he frowned and lightly shook his head.

“I’m still coming with you to the Surface, Papyrus,” he murmured, almost too quiet for the skeleton to even hear.

While he was reluctant to believe such a statement coming from the flower, he didn’t think he could handle refuting anything his friend told him anymore. Hugging the flowerpot a bit closer to himself, he gave a soft “okay”, heading off towards the dark caverns leading to Hotland. Nothing else was said between the two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You waited all of this time for a new chapter, yet all you got was angst.


	7. Chapter 7

The trip through the passageways went by smoothly, Papyrus remembering enough of their layout to navigate them properly (and he only got lost twice, mind you). While he did come across the darkened entranceway to what was once Temmie Village, he neglected to stop there, remembering not-so-fond memories of visiting there with Sans when they were younger. The trip afterwards was even more uneventful, leading up to the exit of the dark passageways and the appearance of the bridge leading out towards Hotland.

Passing the area where Undyne and Frisk had fought so long ago, he kept his gaze glued to the ground. There was no point in getting himself worked up over something so simple; not after what had gone down back at the pond. By now though, he was certain he couldn’t work up enough energy to get upset again. Perhaps later, once he was back on the Surface and had some proper food and rest, but not now.

The electronic sign that once read _WELCOME TO HOTLAND!_ was no longer running. Nothing in Hotland would be running, considering that the Core was down. Papyrus had never visited Hotland much, but he knew of its infamous conveyor belts, steam vents, and elevators everywhere. How would he and Flowey be able to navigate to the top layer of Hotland if nothing was running? For that matter, how would they be able to navigate through the _Core_? While he was sure they could manage through Hotland, the Core was made entirely of power and energy. It would be impossible to get through the area and up to New Home without getting it up and running again, and he knew he didn’t have enough scientific knowledge to accomplish such a thing.

He stopped in front of what used to be the lab for Asgore’s Royal Scientists. Papyrus could only remember a time when Dr. Alphys had been the Royal Scientist, though he had heard stories from both her and Sans of the scientist that had preceded her. Apparently the former Royal Scientist had been the creator of the Core, but then some freak accident with said Core caused him to fall down? It was a bit confusing for him to really know, seeing as Dr. Alphys claimed that he had fallen down, while Sans’ words had been “wiped off the map”, whatever that implied.

Testing out the keypad that opened the door to the lab reconfirmed that there was no power in Hotland, as the door refused to budge. More than likely, the elevator down the nearby path would not work either. It would seem that unless there was some other path through Hotland he didn’t know about, they were stuck.

Slowly, he walked to the other end of the lab near the path that lead down to the river. There happened to be a small ledge off to the side of the lab that he could attempt to traverse. This would at least get him a short way into Hotland, though not very far with all of the elevators still being out.

“Papyrus,” Flowey cut him out of his musings. He hated to admit it, but having someone speak after so long did cause him to jump slightly. “Head over to the elevator really quick.”

“Oh, okay,” he obliged quietly.

He knew that Flowey was well aware of the lack of power in the Underground, so he was clueless as to why the flower wanted to check out the only elevator in their current area. Perhaps there was a secret passageway that he didn’t know about after all? His knowledge of Hotland wasn’t up to par, though he figured that either Alphys or Undyne would have at least mentioned a hidden passage near the ex-Royal Scientist’s lab at some point.

They reached the elevator, Papyrus stepping up and pressing one of the lift’s buttons just to try it out. Predictably, there was no response. At first he expected to get scolded by Flowey for even attempting it, but it appeared that the flower was too busy staring up at the higher levels where the elevator lead to.

“Um, Flowey?” he began tentatively. “Is there a reason you wanted to come here?”

“Yeah,” Flowey responded, trailing off slightly. He continued staring up at the higher levels of Hotland before continuing on. “How much of your magic reserves do you have left?”

That question threw Papyrus off guard, although he was beginning to suspect just what his friend had in mind.

“They’re higher than before since I ate those two candy bars, but they’re still not very good,” he answered.

“So, if I asked you to use your blue magic to get us to those upper levels there, do you think you could make it before your magic reserves ran out?” he questioned, looking back at Papyrus.

Now it was Papyrus’ turn to gaze up at the higher levels of Hotland, taking how far up they were into account. There were small ledges, different portions of unused piping, and technology laced amongst the rocky walls on the way up to each level. He figured they would make for good resting places if he couldn’t make it, though the issue still remained that he could potentially run out of magic at the worst possible time and have them both fall down (in a much more permanent sense of the phrase).

He pulled at his scarf unconsciously, tightening his grip on Flowey as he did so. It was true that he had a good amount of his magic reserves to work with, but he honestly didn’t know if they would last him an entire trip to the top of Hotland. He said as much in his response to Flowey, though the flower merely looked down in thought at this.

“There’s no other way to get up there without any power, is there?” he asked after pondering for a few more moments.

“Not that I know of,” Papyrus responded, before an idea came to him. “You could teleport up the Core, couldn’t you?”

“Well, you’re not _wrong_ about that,” Flowey mumbled. “I could teleport up to it, sure, but it’s not like I’d be able to get into it. There’s no natural ground anywhere in it. Besides, do I look like I know how to run something like that?”

“How am _I_ supposed to know? I barely know anything about you,” Papyrus muttered without even thinking about it.

“Golly, _someone’s_ getting a little bitter, aren’t they?” Flowey spat back, though the usual venom wasn’t quite apparent in his voice.

They fell back into silence after that. Papyrus analyzed the upper levels of Hotland once more, taking both the many ledges and his own magic reserves into account. If done just right, there was a good chance that he could make it up to the top before his reserves ran out. At that point, they really had no other options besides using his blue magic, and sitting there making sarcastic quips at each other certainly wasn’t going to solve anything.

He shifted the flowerpot over to his left arm, focusing his magic into his right. With that done, he grabbed his own soul, turning it blue.

“I’m going to see how far I can make it up. It’s better than nothing,” he informed Flowey.

“Yeah, until we get stuck somewhere forever and die of starvation.”

Papyrus huffed, already raising himself and Flowey into the air. “It was your idea. Don’t call me an idiot because of it.”

“I haven’t said anything about you being an idiot, yet.”

There was no response from Papyrus, as he put all of his focus into getting them both up to the nearest ledge. He did this for some time, lifting them to every small ledge or pipe they came across before stopping to take short breaks at each one. The going was fairly easy until they reached the second level of Hotland.

Once he made it to the second level—what he had dubbed as the halfway point of Hotland—he immediately plopped down where he landed, situated next to a particularly large steam vent puzzle. Flowey made no comment on this, an interested look on his face as he examined the skeleton still clutching onto him. Moments passed with Papyrus attempting to catch his breath from his prolonged use of magic before Flowey decided to throw in his two cents.

“You should just stop. You obviously don’t have enough magic to get us up the rest of the way.”

“No, I can make it. Just give me a moment,” Papyrus huffed out between breaths.

“You’re going to get us stuck somewhere stupid if you keep going,” Flowey groaned.

Papyrus laughed, despite his current situation. “You’re just afraid of heights! That’s why you don’t want me to keep going!”

At that, Flowey looked more affronted than he ever had before during their entire trip. “You’re kidding me, right? I’m _not_ afraid of heights. That’s stupid! I’m more afraid of getting stuck on some pipe for what remains of my pathetic life!”

“Because we’d be stuck high up off the ground and could fall any moment, right?” Papyrus continued on, pushing his luck with the flower.

“ _No_! Just drop it, alright?” Flowey scoffed and turned away, refusing to look at the skeleton making fun of him.

Papyrus took a few seconds to catch his breath some more before attempting to speak again. “I noticed it way back in Snowdin. You got really scared any time I crossed a bridge or jumped over a gap in the cliffs. And just now, you were kind of hiding your face into my arm whenever I tried lifting us higher up.”

“ _Anyone_ would be afraid of that!” Flowey replied, exasperated. Despite this, he still refused to face the skeleton.

Papyrus laughed to himself lightly, deciding that he had recovered enough to continue on. He stood, legs shaking from the effort, though that had become a familiar sensation to him way back in Waterfall. Walking around Hotland’s second level a bit, he kept his gaze up above, trying to find the best place to begin their ascent to the top of the area. Any place where the third level dipped lower, thereby making the distance he had to travel shorter, would be preferable. A way up riddled with numerous ledges and pipes to rest on would also be convenient.

Nothing really quite met the conditions he was looking for, and it wasn’t like he could travel particularly far on the second level without any power or wasting his precious magic reserves. Still, there was one area where the distance between the third and second levels was drastically shorter than anywhere else. That would have to be where he made his attempt, even if there were very few places for him to stop and rest on the way up. The shorter distance would hopefully make the journey somewhat bearable.

Flowey, taking notice of Papyrus readying his blue magic once more, muttered out a quick “and this is where we die” before going completely silent. The moment Papyrus lifted himself into the air, he felt the flower bury his head into his arm. Had it been any other time, he would have stopped to comment on how adorable that was (and he knew that Flowey would be incredibly irritated with such a comment), but as it stood, he needed to focus now more than ever. His magic reserves were _far_ too low for him to be screwing around.

Not even a minute passed before he found himself breathing heavily once more. They hadn’t even reached the first ledge, located just below the halfway point of their trip, and he could feel his magic slipping. There was no way he was giving up, though. That would only prove everyone right. It would prove to _himself_ that he truly was as useless as they all said. After everything that had happened, after losing everyone who ever “cared” about him, all he wanted to do was show them that maybe he _wasn’t_ a burden.

His magic slipped for just a moment, causing him to fall ever so slightly, but he latched back on, refusing to let go of his soul. There was no way he was giving up; not here. He pushed, higher and higher, eventually hitting the first ledge. If he were to sit now, he knew he’d never make it back up, so instead he collapsed against the rocky wall, willing his legs to keep him standing. Flowey still had his face buried in Papyrus’ arm, their short fall likely having been enough to convince him that they definitely weren’t going to make it. He was wrong, though. They were practically halfway there now. The end of Hotland was _right there_. All he had to do was keep a grip on himself and not lose focus.

There were no more ledges or places to rest from there on out, but he could make it. For one final time, he raised his trembling arm, barely managing to even turn his soul blue once again. When he finally got a decent hold on it, he lifted. The overexertion hit him instantly, and he nearly dropped right then and there. He had hit the bottom of his magic reserves, that was for sure. He had to keep going though, if only to affirm to himself that he wasn’t completely useless. It didn’t even matter what Flowey thought anymore. This was a test for him and him alone.

The trip was mostly a blur, Papyrus losing his grip numerous times, falling further down each time before succeeding in getting his grip back, as weak and shaky as it was. Not once during that time did he ever believe that he would fail, though. He kept going, even if there were more setbacks than he would have liked on the way. Before he knew it, the ledge of the third level was in his reach. With the very last of his magic, he practically tossed himself up into the air, praying that he had enough power to get himself as far as he needed. He would have held his breath if it already weren’t so difficult to breathe, and time seemed to stand still for the few seconds it took for him to land from his short launch.

A small shout escaped his throat as he collided with the ground on Hotland’s third level. He laid there, clinging to Flowey with both arms wrapped tightly around his flowerpot. His entire body trembled uncontrollably as he fought to catch even a small breath of air. Flowey, needless to say, still had his head buried, though now two small vines accompanied him, wrapped firmly around Papyrus’ left arm. Flowey could deny it all he wanted, but in the end there was no doubt that he had been deathly afraid they wouldn’t make it.

His body would shut down any moment now, desperate to regain even a little bit of its depleted magic reserves. Still, considering that he had collapsed right on the edge of a considerably large drop back to the second level, passing out there might not have been the best idea. Though it hurt to move even slightly, he turned over and sat up on his knees. Barely able to even hold himself up, he continued, forcing himself to crawl as far from the ledge as he could. Once reaching a short, rocky wall situated next to some stairs leading upwards, he finally noticed where he had ended up. Somehow he had landed himself next to a tile puzzle, the one that Mettaton had used when he tried to kill Frisk during their travels through Hotland.

Sighing in relief, he knew that there wasn’t much further for him to go anymore. The MTT Resort was right up the staircase he sat beside. There would be a hotel room with an actual _bed_ to rest on up there. First, of course, he would need to drag his tired and sore body over there and find a room that happened to be unlocked. He had already managed to get both himself and Flowey up to the top of Hotland, despite using up his nearly depleted magic reserves. If he could manage that, then he could stumble the rest of the way into the resort and find a room to sleep in. This time there would be no humans showing up to chase him out either, seeing as he couldn’t come up with any possible way for them to make it through Hotland without any magic to lift themselves or power to run the elevators.

Shifting Flowey (who had finally let go of his arm and was still likely coming to terms with the fact that they had made it) over to his right arm, he reached up with his left to grab one of the rocky outings on the wall, using it to hoist himself onto his feet. Flowey looked ready to protest this, turning to face Papyrus with an incredulous look, but stopped, mouth halfway open. Papyrus wasn’t sure what stopped him, if perhaps he saw that there was no way the skeleton was going to stop right here, but he was thankful he didn’t say anything. It made it easier to focus on getting himself to the resort.

Getting up the stairs would be the hardest part, and he knew that there would be a second set to climb up immediately after that, but he kept going. Using the wall as leverage (or more like a literal crutch), he pulled himself up each step, catching himself as his legs tried to give out halfway up. Flowey’s flowerpot nearly slipped from his arm more than once, Papyrus not having nearly enough strength to keep a good grip on him anymore. The flower at least aided him to the best of his ability, holding onto the skeleton’s arm with his vines as tightly as he could.

Papyrus collapsed onto his knees the moment he reached the top of the stairs, seeing the next set directly in front of him. Thankfully, they weren’t quite as long, though the walls were smoother, leading into the area where Me ttaton’s old resort resided. From there on out, he wouldn’t have the small outings of rock to help keep him up, which he knew would prove to be an issue.

Knowing that his legs wouldn’t have the strength to keep him up without using the walls as a crutch, he began crawling the short distance of open area between the two staircases. Once he made it, he used the stairs to help him back into a standing position with much difficulty. His climb up the staircase took twice as long as his climb up the first set had taken. He was on the verge of passing out and he knew it, his sweater fully drenched in sweat, his body shaking violently from overexertion and magic depletion. The sight of Mettaton’s old resort had never brought him more relief than it did in the very moment that he reached the top of those stairs.

Practically falling through the resort’s double-doored entrance, he dragged his way through the hallway to the right, slipping further and further down the wall the more he stumbled through it, attempting to find an unlocked room. One came up on the left side of the hallway, and he couldn’t have been more thankful.

He didn’t bother shutting the door behind him as he pulled himself into the room. Flowey was more-or-less dropped onto the nearest bed stand, with Papyrus himself collapsing onto the overly large bed. He didn’t even need to toss the covers over himself, passing out almost the very moment his head hit the pillow. For who knew how long, he would be dead to the world, and he could only hope that Flowey would be willing to allow him the time he needed to recover from his ordeal.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourself.

“Oh golly, looks like someone’s finally awake!” was the first thing he heard as he felt himself drifting back awake.

He stared at the flower near his bedside dazedly, still uncertain of where he was as his tired mind attempted to get itself back in gear. His entire body ached, he knew that much. He hadn’t felt so terrible upon waking up since his first few training sessions with Undyne so long ago. There was no doubt that he had overdone it the other day. Then again, it could possibly still be the same day for all he knew, as he hadn’t had a proper sense of time since those humans had kidnapped him.

The very thought of what he had accomplished recently was difficult to grasp. Sure, he knew that he had excellent control over his magic—both Undyne and Sans had told him so repeatedly over the years—but never in his wildest dreams did he think he’d ever successfully scale the entirety of Hotland with his blue magic, let alone with his magic reserves almost entirely depleted. With as tired and achy as he felt, he genuinely wondered how he had even managed to drag himself to where he was now.

Finally taking in his surroundings properly, he could only deduce that he had dragged himself to a room in the MTT Resort. After all, where else on the third floor of Hotland would he be able to find a bed this large in a room so fancy? He knew that the resort wasn’t very far from where he had landed himself after his desperate climb, though he vaguely remembered the short trip feeling as though it had taken hours to traverse. With his body as exhausted as it was, he couldn’t say he was surprised. Why hadn’t Flowey told him to stop where he was once they were safe? Had he perhaps said something, only to have it completely fly by the enervated skeleton?

It wasn’t as though it mattered now, as they were both safe and well-rested (or as well-rested as he could possibly be at the moment) where they were. After this, they would only have to figure out how to travel through the Core and reach New Home in the capital. The humans could no longer possibly reach them, which of course raised some concerns in him, though he knew Flowey would dismiss said concerns if he were to voice them. For now, he supposed he would just have to deal with the basics around the flower.

“How long was I asleep?” he mumbled, tiredness lingering in his voice.

Flowey cocked his head to the side in mock thought, giving a little hum of contemplation. “Well gosh, that’s such a difficult question to answer! You were out for so long, after all!” It would seem someone was in a good mood. Papyrus had assumed his friend would be pretty upset with him after nearly getting them both killed.

“But how long?” Papyrus pressed on, attempting to suppress a yawn.

“I don’t know!” he giggled. “Do I look like I carry a watch on me?”

“ _Flowey_ ,” he now whined, the tired lilt in his voice nearly gone.

This time the flower chuckled to himself, continuing on in his usual singsong voice. “Well, I can tell you now you slept longer than I did! That’s twice now that you’ve overslept like that! And to think you always used to tell me that sleeping was a waste of time!”

“You woke up the first time because of the humans,” he reminded Flowey, readjusting himself on the bed so that he was sitting up. For a moment he nearly suspected that the humans had somehow reached them there in the resort, but he quickly squashed that idea, finding it too implausible to even continue considering.

“Well yes, that _is_ true, but this time I know I got a full night’s rest!” the flower responded, his chipper attitude not fading. “ _Someone_ was just being a lazybones, weren’t they?”

Papyrus rubbed at his aching bones, mildly miffed over someone actually calling _him_ lazy for once.

“A lazybones wouldn’t have climbed all the way up Hotland and dragged themselves all the way here, though!” He paused for a moment. “I mean, I can’t see Sans ever doing something like that. He would have just teleported. That’s a lot lazier.”

“Pfft,” Flowey scoffed. “Teleporting sure is a heck of a lot smarter than what you did!”

Sighing, Papyrus put a hand to his head and rested his eyes for a moment. Once he was done, he glanced back at his friend, giving him a slightly annoyed look. “It was your idea, Flowey. I just did what you told me to!”

“I never told you to do anything, Papy!” he sung. “I merely _suggested_ it!”

Papyrus took his gaze aside, unconsciously shaking even in that moment. “Why are you so cheerful right now?” he finally asked his friend.

There was a giggle in response, though this time Papyrus could tell that it was one of his nervous giggles, rather than one of the ones he let out when pretending to be cheery.

“I guess I’m just a bit impressed,” Flowey replied, tone still upbeat even with the overacting having been tossed aside. “I mean, you’ve been doing a lot of surprising things since the humans brought you back down here, so it shouldn’t be _that_ surprising, but I can’t help it.” He frowned to himself. “After all, I have this ridiculous soul fragment plaguing my life with _emotions_ now, and it’s terrible.”

For someone who was complaining like that, Papyrus noticed that Flowey sure didn’t look all that inconvenienced. At least, not as bad as he had looked all the way back in the Ruins. Maybe the flower was actually getting accustomed to having emotions?

“Are you trying to say you’re proud of me?” he teased the flower, a grin worming its way onto his face, even if he was still upset with his friend for his outburst back in Waterfall.

The small smile that had settled onto Flowey’s face shortly after his complaints immediately disappeared, the flower looking aghast.

“ _You,_ ” he spluttered out, “need to stop saying things like that!” The appalled look on his face only grew along with Papyrus’ grin. “I don’t get proud of _idiots_ , you know!”

“Then I must not be an idiot! You’ve just been lying to me all these years, haven’t you!” he laughed to himself.

Before more could be said, Flowey promptly turned away, staring resolutely at the wall. As hard as he tried, Papyrus couldn’t tell whether the flower was angry, embarrassed, or perhaps an odd mix of both. If he was being honest with himself, it actually brought a little bit of his hope back. Even if he tried to hide it, Flowey had to have been making progress, right? That was the only conclusion Papyrus could come to after seeing his friend’s little show.

Back in Waterfall, he had given up ever getting through to the nearly-soulless flower, but it was times like these where he remembered that he couldn’t give up. Even when the going got tough and he stopped believing in even _himself_ , he had to remind himself that everyone had the potential to be helped. He was starting to think that maybe he and Flowey both had the potential to help each other out. It would be tough; he knew that now after how the flower had reacted to his earlier attempts to help him. Still, if he could scale all of Hotland with very little magic, then certainly he could help his friend accept what few emotions he could now feel.

First things first though, he _really_ needed some food. His magic reserves were still nearly depleted, and all sleeping had managed to accomplish was gain him enough magic to keep functioning. While he could likely continue the rest of the way out of the Underground on what he had gained, he preferred the security of actually being able to use his magic without the risk of passing out.

He smiled as he looked over at Flowey, seeing that the flower still promptly refused to face him.

“Hey, I’m going to go see if there’s any food left around here!” he informed his friend, who merely turned around enough to give him a proper glare. Papyrus only laughed at this. “I’ll be right back! Don’t miss me while I’m gone!”

“Trust me, I won’t,” Flowey muttered, quickly turning his face away once more.

Papyrus hummed to himself, but then realized that going to get food actually involved getting off of the bed and walking around. With how much his bones were aching, that wasn’t the most pleasant thought. He’d have to deal with it though, seeing as eating was the only surefire way to regain his lost magic and properly heal up.

Moving at a much slower pace than he would have any other time, he swung his legs over the side of the bed, moving to stand up. The pain hit almost instantly, shooting straight up his spine and down his legs. Food was _definitely_ a necessity at that moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Flowey peeking over at him. He considered taking the flower along with him, but figured that his search would be easier and go a lot quicker if he were able to use both his hands. Even if Flowey’s totally-not-concerned look did make Papyrus feel a bit guilty over how bitter he had been towards his friend lately, he knew it didn’t necessarily matter all that much.

Hobbling his way through the still open door of the hotel room, he made his way down the hall and into the main lobby. Looking across the large room, he took in his two options. There was of the course the fast food joint directly to his right, but he wasn’t all too certain if any of it could be eaten without being cooked first. This was under the assumption that anything around was actually edible in the first place, though considering he had already eaten two soggy candy bars straight from the garbage dump, it couldn’t possibly be all that bad. It was MTT-brand food anyways, so it had to be good, right?

Across the lobby, past the large Mettaton-shaped fountain that had presumably stopped working two years ago, was the actual MTT Restaurant. The food over there was supposed to be of higher quality than anything in the burger joint, so perhaps that would be the better place to start? Well, even if he didn’t immediately find anything, he could always just stop at both. There was no one there to tell him he absolutely _couldn’t_ check both places.

Making up his mind, he decided on checking the closest place first, making a beeline for the burger joint to his right. Shoving open the once-automatic doors, he took in his surroundings, seeing a musty, broken-down countertop, the door leading to the kitchen directly behind it. Some of the devices in the immediate vicinity looked as though they had been smashed or slashed at some point in time, while other objects such as chairs were tossed aside and strewn about. Overall, the place appeared much more rundown than the hotel room he had been in did. Hopefully that didn’t mean that any available food was rendered completely inedible, though with how things had been going lately, he was sure something had gone wrong with it.

Walking up to the counter, he corrected his thoughts. There was no need to be so negative. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up just like how Sans had been back before the Barrier was destroyed. Of course, when he really stopped to think about it, he knew that to some extent he was already getting there. His little breakdown after Flowey’s outburst in Waterfall more than proved that. Even still, he somehow had managed to retrieve his belief, both in himself and Flowey; his success in climbing to the top of Hotland for the former, and Flowey’s small showcase of humanity for the latter.

Stepping around the counter and walking back into the kitchen turned out to be a complete bust. For one, the room was far too dark for him to properly make anything out, and for another, all of the machinery and supplies were in the same state as the front end of the burger joint. Everything was, for lack of better words, completely trashed. Just what had happened in this particular area of the MTT Resort bewildered him, but in the end he figured it was best not to dwell on it. All he wanted was to find some food and heal the many aches running through his body.

Having not even attempted to find any food in that pigsty, he left the burger joint emptyhanded, finding himself back in the main lobby. The restaurant across the room would hopefully get him what he wanted, as he had no desire whatsoever of traversing both the Core and the capital in this state.

Walking through the entranceway and into the back, Papyrus found that the restaurant was in a significantly better state than the burger joint. Everything was still in relative order, though perhaps that had something to do with the absolute lack of usual restaurant necessities, such as chairs. He’d seen the resort on television numerous times before, and Sans had occasionally talked about it, though he himself had never seen it in person. Once he made it back up to the Surface, he could see if Sans had any idea why the burger joint had been trashed and why the restaurant had no chairs at any of the tables. Well, he’d ask him if he could ever convince his brother to let him see him for once.

Sighing and rubbing at his temple, he tried to ignore the hitch in his chest, instead focusing on finding something to eat. Pushing further back, he made it into the kitchen area. It was still quite dark in the back, though it was nowhere near as bad as the kitchen in the burger joint, and he could at least navigate through the area. It took him just moments to find where all of the food was stored, right next to what he assumed was once a working walk-in freezer.

The food…well, it did _not_ look good in the slightest. Even if the food that monsters ate was made entirely out of magic, sitting stagnant for two whole years did not treat any of it well. He grabbed any boxes and cans that he possibly could, figuring that anything that had been sealed wouldn’t be quite so inedible, but neglected to check out anything in the freezer. If there was one thing he learned from Toriel before she and Sans got married, it was that certain foods needed to be froze because they would spoil too quickly otherwise. If what he was looking at now appeared far-gone, then the freezer would probably be like walking into some food nightmare.

Arms stuffed full of musty boxes and cans of expired food, Papyrus concluded that his newfound stack would do, even if he had to choke most of it down like he had done with those two candy bars. He turned from the kitchen and left, walking back through the main lobby and down the hall into the hotel room he had left Flowey in. As he entered, the flower sized up the food in his arms, giving it a particularly queasy look.

“I have no idea how you can force yourself to eat that garbage,” he commented, still staring at the food in the skeleton’s arms.

“Well, it’s not _actually_ from the garbage this time, so it can’t be all that bad!” Papyrus replied, giving an uncertain smile.

Walking up to the bed, he plopped his food stack down onto it, sitting beside the stack so that he was next to Flowey. Looking over everything he had taken, he reached for the nearest possible box and began opening it up. Pouring some of its contents into his hand, he could honestly say that he had next to no idea of what it actually was. He gave Flowey a questioning glance, as if his friend might know what the heck it was, but the flower looked just as confused as he felt.

“I bet that’ll kill you if you eat it,” Flowey pondered out loud.

By that point, Papyrus was beginning to believe him, still staring at the bizarre substance in his hand. Still, he needed to eat and regain his magic. The “food” had presumably been sold in the MTT Restaurant, and he’d never heard of anyone dying over it before, so it couldn’t have been all that lethal, despite what both he and his friend thought.

Taking one of the things and bringing it up to his mouth, he took a cautious bite. The look on his face must have said everything about how it tasted, as Flowey immediately burst out laughing. Doing his best not to gag and spit the thing out on the spot, he put his free hand to his mouth and forced himself to swallow it. As he finished, staring frightfully at the rest of the “food” in his right hand, he could hear Flowey still laughing at him.

“Okay so, this _might_ not be the best thing to eat first,” he mumbled, shoving the remaining pieces of it back into their box.

“You’re killing me, here!” Flowey nearly exclaimed as his laughing died down into his usual giggles. “Do you really think the rest of that garbage is going to be any better?”

Papyrus looked over the stack of food he had grabbed, realizing that he had actually grabbed three whole boxes of whatever that stuff was. Something told him that he would not be making it through even one of those boxes, let alone three. Eventually he located a box of food that looked relatively safe, and decided on attempting to eat that.

The next few moments were dominated by Papyrus’ various attempts at eating any of the food he had brought from the restaurant, Flowey commenting on both the sight of the food and all of the skeleton’s reactions to it. While forcing the “garbage” down, as Flowey liked to call it, Papyrus had to admit that he was having a pretty decent time. His friend was in a very good mood after all, and while it _was_ at his expense, he was glad that he was still able to at least make _someone_ happy. They were getting along again, despite the whole fiasco in Waterfall.

After a good amount of time had passed, Papyrus had found two boxes and one can of the strange MTT-brand food that he could actually bring himself to eat. A majority of the rest had been “lethal garbage, intended to kill you, obviously,” and sat mostly untouched on the furthest side of the bed from the skeleton and flower possible. He choked down as much as he could of the expired, inedible food. Though overall it was a terrible experience, he could already feel the magic coursing back through his systems. The aches he had suffered from until that moment were close to being fully healed, thanks to his regained magic reserves.

Seeing as he was finally feeling better (and had figured out which foods were less likely to make him puke than others), he wondered if perhaps he should risk attempting to get Flowey to open up to him again. After how his first attempt had ended, he was quite wary of even mentioning anything to the flower about the subject, but he was still curious. How could he help his friend out if he wasn’t even certain of what he needed help with in the first place? While he knew that it probably wasn’t any of his business, Flowey had already dug far into places that weren’t _his_ business either when it came to talking with Papyrus. It was only fair that the flower open up to him as well, wasn’t it?

Swallowing the food he had been absently chewing on, he looked over at the flower, who had been examining some of the boxes the skeleton had set by him. For a moment he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to start the conversation, nervousness coursing through him. Flowey had been in such an amiable mood since he woke up, and Papyrus was reluctant to ruin that with what he was about to ask.

“Um, Flowey?” he began, already absently playing with the hem of his scarf, staring down at it.

There was a pause as Flowey took in the atmosphere the skeleton was giving off. Papyrus immediately regretted not trying to go into the conversation sounding more confident. His friend must have already figured out that something was up.

“Yeah, Papyrus?” Flowey responded, sounding only mildly suspicious.

“I, uh, was wondering if maybe you wanted to talk about Waterfall?”

Silence was met with his request. He risked a glance at his friend, only to notice that the flower was staring him down _hard_.

“I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I thought maybe it would be good for both of us if we got that out of the way,” Papyrus instantly tried to correct himself, throwing his gaze back down into his lap.

The flower must have been considering this, as they sat in silence for an uncomfortable amount of time. Papyrus was about to backtrack out of the conversation before Flowey beat him to it.

“Are you trying to tell me I need to apologize?”

No matter how hard he tried, Papyrus couldn’t decipher Flowey’s tone of voice, which had gone almost completely flat.

“I never said that. I mean, it would be nice, but you don’t have to. I know you won’t do it anyways,” he answered, voice falling quieter the further along he went. Attempting to remedy that, he raised his voice some more, glancing back at the flower. “I just think you and I should really talk about our issues. You were trying to get me to talk about mine back then, and I tried to get you to talk about yours. It just didn’t end very well for either of us.”

“And you want to try again?”

Papyrus sat and contemplated the flower’s question before giving a slight nod of his head. “Yeah, we should try again. I’ll…” he trailed off, reluctant. “I’ll tell you about what those humans did when they captured me, and anything else you want to hear about, too! In return, I want to know some stuff about you.”

Flowey’s face shifted over to one of stoic scrutiny. If this didn’t get the flower to open up, Papyrus didn’t know what would. He knew for a fact that his friend was interested in what he had gone through, both up on the Surface with his family and on his way to Mt. Ebott with those four humans. He had no idea _why_ he showed interest in those subjects, but it was clear with how often the flower had questioned him about them since they first stopped in Snowdin.

The look that the flower gave him turned resigned before shifting to a more familiar annoyed expression. “You’ll tell me _everything_ I want to know?”

He nodded his head again, relief beginning to pour through his systems. “Yes! I’ll tell you everything! You just need to tell me something about yourself!”

Nearly scoffing, Flowey turned his head aside, glaring at the wall for several moments before returning his attention to the skeleton. “Okay, fine. What do you want to know?” he asked.

Papyrus nearly stalled on the spot, not having actually expected to get this far with the flower. He certainly hadn’t expected his friend to offer to go first, either.

“Oh, well,” he stumbled over his words, both hands now playing with the hem of his scarf. “It’s just, I don’t actually know anything about you at all. I know you didn’t have a soul until recently, and I don’t really think there’s any other plant monsters around, either.” He paused, contemplating whether or not he actually wanted to mention his next thought. “And you say some strange things sometimes. Like stuff about the past, or doing things with me that I don’t remember doing.”

Expecting Flowey to grow further irritated or angry over the skeleton’s pondering, Papyrus had to do a double take when the flower actually took on a curious look.

“So you want to know about the resets?” Flowey suggested.

“The what?” Now Papyrus was thoroughly confused. He finally stopped the nervous fiddling with his scarf, giving his friend a perplexed look.

Flowey hesitated for just a moment before giving a quick sigh. “Yeah, the resets. Your brother never told you, I’m assuming.”

“No,” Papyrus confirmed, “you already know he doesn’t tell me anything.”

“Well, I guess I can’t blame him. You’d just forget anyways, even if he did tell you.”

Normally Papyrus would have found himself offended by that statement, assuming it to be a jab at his intelligence once again, but for once it didn’t appear as though Flowey had meant it in any vitriolic fashion.

“Our timeline is really screwed up, you see. You know about timelines and time travel at least, right?”

“Yeah. I’ve read lots of stories about that kind of stuff!” Papyrus answered.

“Okay, well there’s someone in our timeline who sort of has the ability to time travel. They can ‘reset’ the timeline and send it back to a specific point in the past.” He paused, giving Papyrus a look to make sure he was keeping up with the new information.

Papyrus, for one, was uncertain of whether or not Flowey was duping him. It was common knowledge that the flower thought him to be a complete moron, and could have very likely been screwing with him for the fun of it.

“I used to have the ability to reset, for various reasons, but a certain _human_ took it after they fell down here. I’m sure you can guess who that is.”

“Are you saying Frisk can do this ‘resetting’ thing?” he questioned, still a bit incredulous over what the flower was telling him.

“Yep!” Flowey responded. Noticing that Papyrus didn’t quite believe him yet, he threw a frown back on his face. “Look, don’t you ever remember any time where you came across something, and it just felt _so_ familiar, yet you’d never encountered anything like it before? Or you thought you remembered something, only to realize that you had no idea what it was you thought you remembered?”

“I…guess?” Papyrus sat and thought about it. “I mean, I could have sworn I saw Frisk before when they first showed up in Snowdin. Sans really wasn’t helping things, either.” He could actually remember that moment quite clearly, as he had been so certain that he and the human were good friends. After first seeing them, he had practically run up to greet them like the old friend that they definitely weren’t. They had been awfully calm and knowledgeable of the whole ordeal, too.

“Yeah. That’s because your brother’s one of the few people who actually remembers anything after a reset. Cha—I mean, Frisk and I are the other two.”

“Okay.” He sat and thought about it some more. “I guess it does make sense when I think about it, but why is all of this going on? How come you guys can remember everything but no one else can?”

At that, the flower grumbled to himself. “Well, I can remember because I used to have the ability to reset. Frisk can remember because they have the ability now. Your brother, though; he didn’t remember anything at first, at least not until Frisk got the ability. I think he started noticing all of the little slip ups in his memory and in the timeline, and eventually all of his noticing must have led him to remembering the resets or something. I don’t actually know.” Flowey cocked his head to the side, slightly bewildered himself.

“As for _why_ this reset ability is being passed around, well…” he trailed off. “I _might_ have to tell you about something else, because there’s kind of a long explanation for that.” He gave Papyrus a knowing grin.

“Oh, okay,” Papyrus uttered. He was still confused and taking all of what he was being told in. Whether or not Flowey was actually screwing with him remained in question, though as he said before, the more he thought about it, the more sense all of Flowey’s spiel made.

“So, now you need to tell me something,” Flowey urged. “If you want me to tell you where the reset ability came from, of course.”

“Alright, that’s fair,” he considered. “I don’t really have anything shocking to tell you like that, though.”

“I’m curious, Paps. You know how I am,” he mentioned, smirk planted firmly on his face.

He wavered slightly, still reluctant to talk about how the humans had captured and hurt him, but a promise was a promise, especially to the only person he could still consider a friend.

“I mean, I already told you how they captured me a little,” he reiterated, taking in Flowey’s nod of confirmation. “I think they found me when I was trying to get a new job. I wasn’t happy with the one I had on the construction site, so I was looking around. This one company said they were going to hire me, but those guys broke into my house right afterwards and then knocked me out. So, I don’t know where I was when I woke up, or how they got me there,” he continued on.

From there, he began to recount all of the events during his kidnapping, starting from the moment when that first human—Dan? He couldn’t recall anymore, not that he ever paid much attention in the first place—came in and began talking to him about things that he simply couldn’t understand, making bizarre suggestions and movements as he went. He told Flowey about how their leader had interrupted, smacking the first human around a bit before interrogating Papyrus about the Underground.

When he got to the part of how, no matter how hard he tried to convince them, not a single one of the humans would believe anything he said about what he knew of the Underground, Flowey’s smirk dropped and his face shifted to an irritated look.

“They didn’t even believe you about being a sentry in Snowdin?” he cut in.

“No, they thought I was from the Royal Guard!” Papyrus laughed nervously, the irony still not lost on him.

“God, what _morons_ ,” Flowey commented to himself. “What the heck did they really think this place was like? Some super advanced society with magic artifacts and deadly weapons everywhere?” he spat.

“I think they were under the assumption that we were all really mean and violent, kind of like in all of those monster movies I’ve watched up on the Surface.”

Flowey scoffed. “The only mean and violent monster is me. The rest of you are all soft-hearted goody-goods compared to me.”

“I don’t think you really fit their idea of a violent monster,” Papyrus voiced.

The flower’s smirk returned, a smug look plastered on his face. “Yeah, well I’m sure I gave them more than a good enough first impression. I bet they never expected to have their lives threatened by a _cute, itty-bitty_ _flower_ before!” he snickered. He kept the smug expression on his face. “So continue on, what else happened?”

“Well, I couldn’t figure out what to tell them that they would actually believe, so I started trying to just tell them about how they could get down here and see for themselves what it was like. I told them about how any humans we saw would fall in through that opening in Mt. Ebott, but before I could tell them about where the Barrier used to be located, they all just kind of left the room.”

From there, he recalled how occasionally one of the humans would return to try to get more out of him about what was down in the Underground, and how after not being satisfied by any of his answers, they would begin beating him hard enough to bruise and hurt, but not so hard that they would break any of his bones. Then the first human he had seen came in, making those strange gestures and suggestions similar to before, telling him how skeletons didn’t need any clothing and proceeded to rip his off, leaving him with only his boots.

He noticed at this point that Flowey’s face looked absolutely disgusted and nearly aghast, but decided not to question it, continuing on with how their leader, once again, came in and stopped whatever the first human was doing. It was from there that he had been blindfolded and gagged by his own scarf, his hands tied behind his back with rope. While Flowey’s disgusted expression calmed as Papyrus went over his and the humans’ trip up Mt. Ebott, it still didn’t seem any less disturbed or shocked about how he had been literally dragged up the mountain and tossed down the opening into the Underground.

“No wonder the entire left side of your body was so trashed,” Flowey commented, not having realized that not once had Papyrus had a chance to walk on his own during their trip.

Papyrus shrugged at the flower’s statement. “That was probably the worst part of it. I was fine before when they were just hitting me and stuff, but they were dragging me up that mountain for so long. I don’t think I could even feel that side of my body anymore when we made it to the top.”

There was a pause as he realized that there wasn’t much left for him to say. Flowey knew everything else from that point on, as that was when they had been reunited. There was still one issue to cover, though. Even if he knew that Flowey would ignore his worries and call him an idiot for caring, the matter still bothered him a great deal. Figuring this was the only chance he would get to voice his earlier concerns, Papyrus mentioned one final thing about the humans.

“I’ve been thinking about something since I woke up; about the humans. I don’t think they’ll be able to make it through Hotland.” He noticed Flowey’s disapproving look almost instantly. “I’m just worried that they might not ever be able to leave the Underground. Isn’t New Home the only place where they can leave from?”

The look he received from Flowey was one of near exasperation.

“We are _not_ going back for those humans. That is by far the stupidest idea I have ever heard, even coming from you,” he snarled.

“No, that’s not what I meant!” Papyrus tried to correct himself. “I just meant that I’m worried. I don’t want them to get stuck down here forever.”

Flowey’s glare intensified at that. “They can rot down here for all I care. If they’re too stupid to figure out that they can leave back the way they came, then they deserve to get stuck down here.”

Papyrus perked up at that. “You mean the opening at Mt. Ebott?”

“Obviously,” Flowey scoffed. “They used some weird gear to climb down it. I’m sure they can use it to climb their way back up.”

Looking back on it, Papyrus never did stop to think about how the humans could have possibly climbed down the opening without falling like he, Frisk, and several other humans had done before. Having been blindfolded and physically dragged up the mountain, it was no wonder he never stopped to consider the possibility.

A loud huff was heard from the flower, and Papyrus figured that that must have meant the discussion was over. As any matters concerning the humans were more-or-less finished, he closely watched Flowey’s expressions as the flower thought everything over. Initially, he had expected his friend to respond with interest and glee in the subject, yet the flower was acting surprisingly angered and upset over the whole ordeal.

“I wasn’t lying back in the Ruins when I said those humans were a bunch of sickos. Are all humans gross like them?” Flowey eventually asked.

Papyrus rubbed at one of his arms, uncertain of how to answer. “A lot of humans aren’t very nice. Not like Frisk, at least.” He saw Flowey’s irked expression, backtracking and deciding he needed to stand up for the humans. “There’s still a lot of really nice ones too, though! They’re not all terrible people, I swear!”

Flowey grimaced. “I don’t know if I actually want to go up to the Surface if I have to deal with _that_. I already had to deal with a bunch of idiot humans there in the past. I guess nothing changes,” he muttered to himself, unaware that Papyrus was now actively questioning every statement he made of that caliber.

“Is that something that happened in a past timeline? Have you been up on the Surface before?” the skeleton questioned, interested.

He saw Flowey stop short at that, giving him a surprised look before answering. “Yeah, I guess you can say I’ve been up to the Surface. It was only once.” He continued staring at Papyrus, hesitance clear on his face. “It actually has something to do with the reset ability that I had.”

Papyrus perked up at this, eager to learn more about all of Flowey’s timeline stories. “Did you use the reset ability to help you get up to the Surface?” he asked.

Flowey looked away, staring at the wall again. “No. This was just before I got the ability.” There was a long pause in which Papyrus didn’t think the flower would continue. “I still had my soul back then, too.”

Flowey used to have a soul? He supposed he shouldn’t have been so surprised, yet he leaned in eagerly to hear more regardless.

“You actually had a soul? How did you end up losing it?”

An uncertain look came across the flower’s face, and his expression was quickly falling back into the one he had worn so often back in the Ruins; the one that made him look so lost.

“I didn’t used to be a flower.” He stated softly, almost too quiet to hear. Before Papyrus could express his shock, Flowey continued. “I had a normal monster form, just like everyone else in the Underground.” He stopped himself short, hanging his head. A bout of nervous giggles were let loose before he spoke again. “Why am I even telling you this? There’s no point. You’ll just forget after Chara eventually resets. Heck, even _I’ll_ forget. There’s no point to any of this.”

Momentarily ignoring the use of Prince Chara’s name, Papyrus voiced his latter confusion. “But you said that you can remember everything. Why would you forget?”

“Because if Chara wants to reset the timeline after the Barrier is broken down, then they have to do a true reset. A true reset resets _everything_. That includes mine, Frisk’s, and your brother’s memories. That includes getting rid of this fragment of soul that I have right now. Too much happens after the Barrier is broken down, and it’s not possible to safely reset afterwards without completely changing the timeline. So a true reset happens, and every time it _does_ happen, I can only remember bits and pieces of the previous timeline. Even then, I have to actively _try_ to remember what happened in order to get anything.” He sighed. “That’s why telling you any of this is completely pointless. We won’t remember anything.”

“So, we’ve been up on the Surface before? Frisk has broken the Barrier before?” he asked tentatively.

“Oh yeah. You’ve been up there _plenty_ of times. Why do you think your brother stopped caring about it? Why do you think he keeps getting lazier and lazier? Even _he_ understands that everything we do is pointless if it’s all just going to be reset.”

He considered this information, but one thing was still bothering him. “So why are you even trying to get up to the Surface with me? You could have just stayed in the Ruins if you don’t think it matters.”

It appeared that Flowey didn’t have an answer for that, as he sat and stared off silently, confusion and conflict apparent on his face.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, nearly inaudible. “I don’t know,” he repeated a bit louder, suddenly shaking.

Papyrus, instantly recognizing what was going on, reached out and grabbed Flowey, hugging his flowerpot to himself.

“I don’t need to be comforted. That’s stupid,” Flowey ground out as this was done, voice wavering as his body continued to tremble.

“It’s okay to feel sad, Flowey. I’ve been crying a whole bunch since I got down here, anyways. There’s nothing wrong with it,” he tried to assure the flower, even though he could clearly remember feeling worthless and pathetic whenever he had begun crying in front of his friend.

“I’m just confused, okay?” Flowey muttered as best he could, head now buried in Papyrus’ scarf, hiding his face. “I _hate_ having this stupid soul,” he practically sobbed.

Papyrus, uncertain how else to proceed with the situation, lightly patted the back of Flowey’s head, hoping that the gesture helped to calm his friend down. Flowey flinched as he felt the boney hand come into contact with him, but relaxed shortly afterwards. The two of them sat there, Papyrus feeling increasingly awkward, not used to seeing Flowey in such a state. The flower, for his part, calmed down mere moments after his episode had begun. Papyrus felt mildly impressed, though he had to remind himself that with only a fragment of a soul, it made sense that Flowey wouldn’t experience the same level of sadness as anyone else.

As the flower pulled away from his scarf and caused Papyrus to remove his hand, he noticed that the fabric of the garment wasn’t the slightest bit wet. Flowey hadn’t even started crying. Still needing to remind himself of his friend’s incomplete soul, Papyrus found that he wasn’t very surprised by this fact, either. Flowey turned his head away in a huff, refusing to look in the skeleton’s direction despite still being clutched in his arms. They took a few moments longer to sit in silence; perhaps the first silence between them that _wasn’t_ entirely uncomfortable since beginning their journey.

It was longer still before Papyrus decided to ask the one question still on his mind. “What does Prince Chara have to do with all of this?”

Flowey jumped at the sound of Papyrus’ voice before turning to look up at him. A slightly frightened look appeared on his face, not dissimilar to how he had looked whenever Papyrus had walked near a ledge or cliff back in Snowdin.

“Didn’t I tell you that none of this matters?” the flower reminded him.

“I know you don’t think it matters, but I think it does,” Papyrus informed him, trying to keep his voice low and even. “I mean, we don’t know how long it will be until there’s another…true reset? I think you should try to be happy and make your life better during the time we have left. And,” he paused, looking off to the side, clutching the flowerpot tighter, “I know you said I can’t help you, but I still want to try. I think we should both try to help each other.”

Flowey pondered this, gazing blankly at the wall beside them. “You’re such an optimistic idiot,” he murmured absentmindedly. “Even after you say no one wants anything to do with you, you still think you can make your life better.”

“It’s hard, you know.” Papyrus shifted, adjusting himself and Flowey into a better sitting position. “But I still think that no one deserves to be alone forever. If you just keep trying, you’ll eventually find someone who likes you and wants to be with you. Getting through life is a lot easier when you have someone with you to help along the way.”

“I shouldn’t even bother reminding you of all the bad things I’ve done,” Flowey muttered. “You have to have realized that I’ve been absolutely terrible to you in other timelines though, right?”

“Yeah, and you know how I feel about people being able to change.”

Given the long period of silence after that, Papyrus was ready to drop the issue, but then the flower did something surprising.

“Chara might be the reason that all of these resets keep happening. I mean, they practically _are_ the reset ability. Nothing like that was possible until they fell into the Underground. At least, I don’t think any resets were possible.”

Papyrus hesitated, uncertain if Flowey would stop talking or not if he interjected, but voiced his question anyways. “But didn’t Prince Chara die a long time ago?”

Flowey laughed humorlessly. “Yeah, but human souls linger even after death, remember? Chara’s soul is strong enough that it can cause all of these resets, and since it’s attached to Frisk right now, that means Frisk has that power, too.”

“So, Chara’s soul was attached to you before? Is that similar to absorbing a soul?” Papyrus inquired.

“I guess, but not really. I’m not actually all too sure how it works, honestly. It’s kind of more like instead of me or Frisk absorbing the soul, the soul just takes residence near ours?” He frowned in confusion at his statement. “I never thought about it much until now. Either way, Chara’s soul went from me to Frisk right after they fell into the Underground. I was the first monster they met, and Chara apparently decided that they were better to attach their soul to than me.”

Papyrus noticed that Flowey actually appeared a little hurt over that statement, but didn’t comment on it.

“So, how did Chara’s soul end up with you in the first place? Does it have to do with you losing your soul?”

The flower’s gaze softened as he looked up at Papyrus, reluctance returning to his features. “Chara was my sibling. Mom and Dad adopted them after they fell into the Underground.”

It didn’t hit Papyrus immediately, but after noticing that Flowey appeared to be waiting with bated breath, the implications of what the flower had just said finally occurred to him. His mind went blank with shock, much more so than when Flowey had told him about the timelines and resets. No longer clutching the flowerpot to himself, he held it out ever so slightly, staring down at the flower.

“A-Asriel?” he barely breathed out, still in disbelief.

Flowey looked as though he was ready to die on the spot, having revealed something that Papyrus was sure he had never told anyone before, not even in other timelines.

“Does…Do Sans and Frisk know?” he spluttered, unable to find the right words.

The flower let loose a few nervous giggles, blatantly staring off to the side rather than at the skeleton. “Your brother doesn’t know, but Frisk does. They figured it out after they beat me and broke the Barrier.” His voice was wavering again, laced with uncertainty. “I don’t actually know if they remember it after any true resets, but they always find out right before the Barrier breaks.”

“You’re Prince Asriel,” Papyrus reasserted to himself, still in shock. “B-But why are you a flower? What happened to your soul?”

That was when Flowey closed up, too reluctant to answer anymore. Papyrus stared down at him, pulling the flowerpot back in to cling to it. He had no idea what to think anymore. All he knew was that there was no way he was going to get Flowey (Asriel?) to reveal anything else from that point on. It was best to drop it and not push him too hard.

“I’m sorry, Flowey,” he murmured, having no idea what else to say. “I promise I won’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Flowey responded as if in a daze. They sat in silence once more, both shocked and confused over their conversation, before Flowey spoke up one final time. “After we make it to the Surface, I’ll try to tell you everything else.”

Papyrus smiled lightly, feeling more hopeful and confident about his faith in the flower. This was progress; an amazing amount of progress. Never in his wildest dreams did he ever imagine he would get his friend to open up to him like that. The fact that Flowey showed a willingness to tell him even more later on spoke volumes. He hugged the flowerpot tighter, a giddy feeling arising up over his remaining shock. Things were going to get better after all. He could help his friend, no matter how reluctant he was about the issue.

Shuffling back a bit, Papyrus reached for one of the boxes of food he had been working on earlier, roughly half of its contents having already been eaten. Using one hand to continue eating and the other to hold Flowey in his lap, he and his friend sat in a relatively comfortable silence. As much as he despised having to choke down the expired MTT-brand concoctions, he still wanted to have full magic reserves and get back to an optimal physical state.

At some point during that time, he noticed that Flowey had begun to lean back against him, having returned to investigating the boxes and cans that were nearby him. Papyrus had no idea if this was a conscious action on the flower’s part, but he smiled regardless.

“Hey Flowey,” he spoke up to get the flower’s attention. “Do you still want me to call you by that name?”

Flowey sat still, slowly turning around to give the skeleton an unreadable look.

“I’m not the same as Asriel,” he muttered. “Asriel has a soul; I don’t.”

“Oh,” Papyrus responded, confused. “So, are you part Asriel, then? And mostly Flowey? Since you have part of a soul, you know.” This was an odd topic to be discussing, and he couldn’t tell whether or not Flowey was too uncomfortable with it.

To his surprise, Flowey actually stopped to ponder his statement, his own confusion apparent on his face. “You really like asking all of the difficult questions, don’t you?” he complained, voice low.

“I can just keep calling you Flowey. It’s okay,” Papyrus mentioned in an attempt to abate some of the flower’s confusion.

“Yeah, just let me think about it for—”

The flower was interrupted by the hum of machinery starting up, resonating all throughout the hotel as a loud screech sounded from outside the building. Papyrus and Flowey sat, tense and astonished, as light flooded into their hotel room. The light caused Papyrus to shut his eye sockets against it, not having been exposed to any proper illumination since being kidnapped. He had grown so used to wandering around in near darkness that finally being exposed to an actual light source was painful.

“The power’s on,” Flowey practically squeaked, his voice rising in pitch.


	9. Chapter 9

A soft humming could be heard throughout the building Flowey and Papyrus sat in, the lights shining bright and illuminating the entire area. It was almost too much for Papyrus to truly register, his mind stalling the moment Flowey had announced the power’s return.

“ _How_?” Papyrus questioned, bewildered and thrown back into shock. He squinted his eye sockets open slightly, taking the newly brightened room in.

“I don’t know! This shouldn’t be possible with the Core down!” Flowey answered, attempting to get his voice’s pitch under control.

“Did the humans do something?” the skeleton continued, uttering his confusion. Panic was beginning to grip his soul, the very thought of the humans actually being able to _reach_ them terrifying him.

“They couldn’t have!” Flowey nearly shouted, whipping his head around as he gaped at the lights located on the ceiling and walls.

Finally finding himself able to completely open his eye sockets and properly look around the room, Papyrus noticed the increasingly angry look growing on the flower’s face. He appeared to be expressing a good amount of anger, irritation, and fear once Papyrus considered him further. He himself was feeling a good amount of terror (which he vaguely wondered if Flowey was capable of feeling with his fragment of soul, but he pushed that thought aside), and knew for certain that the power suddenly turning on couldn’t possibly be a good thing.

“Could someone be in the Core?” he asked, moving to stand from the bed as he clutched Flowey tightly to himself with both arms.

Flowey shook his head before perking up, turning to stare at him. “ _Why_? Someone would have had to come down from the Barrier to get into the Core. Most monsters and no humans can possibly make it through Hotland right now, so that’s the only way!” A look of realization struck his face. “Does anyone besides those four humans know that you’re down here? Did they leave anyone on the Surface to come get them?”

“No, I never told them where the Underground’s entrance was! They only know about Mt. Ebott! And I don’t think there were more than four, anyways!” Papyrus exclaimed hurriedly, cautiously walking outside of the hotel room and glancing both ways down the hall.

Flowey groaned. “It was a stupid thought anyways. The humans couldn’t possibly figure out how to work the Core. It runs on magic anyways, doesn’t it? Only a monster would be able to start it up.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Sans told me a bit about the Core a long time ago. He didn’t mention it often, though,” he informed Flowey as he slowly walked to the end of the hall.

“Wait, stop!” Flowey hissed, throwing a vine around Papyrus’ left arm.

The skeleton stopped in his tracks a few meters before the hallway led into the main lobby. He held his breath without even thinking about it, realizing why Flowey had made him stop. The elevator in the main lobby was running; he could hear it clearly. Someone was coming, and they would be there soon. He felt his panic swell up, finding it difficult to breath properly all of a sudden, even as he stopped holding it in.

“What do we do?” he whispered, shoving himself against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t be immediately visible to whoever left the elevator once it arrived.

“You’ll have to use force if they seem threatening. I know you won’t fight, so just use your blue magic to shove them aside and then make a break for the Core. You can run _fast_ , so I doubt they can keep up with you,” Flowey suggested, whispering even quieter than Papyrus had. “You got away from those humans just fine back in Snowdin, so I _know_ you can lose whoever’s on their way here now.”

Had he not felt so panicked, he knew he would have found himself beaming over Flowey’s offhanded praise, unused to hearing something so genuine from his friend, but it was not the time to think about things like that. He had to be prepared for whoever ended up leaving that elevator, on the (very likely) chance that they weren’t some kind monster looking for a quick chat with a depressed skeleton and a semi-soulless flower.

A soft _ding_ signaled the arrival of the elevator, and a rattling whoosh sounded as the doors opened. Papyrus tried to hold back his panic, already feeling the sweat drip down from his brow. Flowey sat on edge, his small vine still wrapped tightly around Papyrus’ arm. Voices were heard, as what appeared to be two people having a conversation.

“Listen, let’s just hurry and find those pricks so I can kick their asses!” the first voice exclaimed, anger and impatience lacing through it.

The voice brought Papyrus’ racing thoughts to a halt. He _knew_ that voice. Before either his common sense or Flowey could chime in and stop him, he whipped around the corner of the hallway, seeing the tall fish monster leaving the open elevator, a large, box-like robot following just behind her.

“Undyne!” he exclaimed, his fear having been completely replaced by excitement.

Both the fish warrior and robot jumped at Papyrus’ sudden entrance, Undyne instinctively summoning a spear and readying it. Before she could attack with the weapon, her eyes widened, properly taking in the sight of the skeleton. The spear had just barely disappeared as Papyrus tackled her into a hard, one armed hug. She tensed as the boney arm wrapped around her torso, but she soon recovered as Papyrus continued babbling about how excited he was that she was there.

“Oh my god, Undyne!” he spouted out, burying his face into her shoulder. He was mindful of the flowerpot in his other arm, trying not to crush Flowey in his excitement. “You’re here!”

“Pap?” she blurted out, before it seemed to finally hit her.

She suddenly wrapped both of her arms around the skeleton, gripping him hard enough that he knew he’d have bruises later. Not that he particularly cared at the moment, as Undyne lifted him up and proceeded to shout at him in equal amounts excitement.

“God, you dork! Do you know how worried I was about you?” she exclaimed, setting Papyrus back down to the ground. She still clung to him, refusing to lessen her grip. “Are those pricks that kidnapped you anywhere around?”

“No! We got away from them! They’re probably in Waterfall right now!” he replied, pulling back as far as he could to look up at her (which wasn’t very far, considering how tightly she had her arms wrapped around him).

“Damn!” she spat, stomping her foot once. Anger further laced through her voice as she continued. “I was hoping I’d get to kick their asses for hurting you!”

“How did you know I was in the Underground?” he questioned, glancing behind Undyne’s shoulder to look at Mettaton, who was watching the scene with an air of boredom about him.

Undyne finally loosened her grip and let the skeleton go, but kept her hands on his shoulders in order to properly look him over. She was about to open her mouth, presumably to answer his question, but stopped short, spotting the flower held in Papyrus’ arm. The relieved look on her face soured instantly as she glared down at Flowey.

“Pap, what the hell are you doing with _that_?” she gritted out through clenched teeth, looking ready to tear the flowerpot out of Papyrus’ hands and toss it to the ground.

Mettaton peeked over in slight curiosity at Undyne’s sudden shift in tone, but said nothing as Papyrus began stumbling over his words in an attempt to explain himself.

“H-He saved me from the humans!”

“Oh, did he now?” the fish warrior spat, hardening her grip on Papyrus’ shoulders.

“Yes! He’s my friend! We’ve been helping each other out!” he spoke loudly in comparison to Undyne’s voice, which had gone tight in her struggle not to immediately lash out.

Just when he didn’t think he’d be able to handle the ever increasing grip on his shoulders, Undyne let him go, stepping back slightly. The “grin” on her face was strained, a look that Papyrus knew from experience meant that she was _fuming_.

“You do know that weed tried to kill all of us, right?” she hissed out.

“Yes, but he has a soul now! He’s changing, and he feels really bad for everything he did!” Papyrus defended his friend. Flowey, for his part, was unconsciously huddled against Papyrus’ scarf, staring straight at Undyne’s increasingly unhinged grin.

“He’s tricked you before. How do you know he’s not just tricking you now? Trying to get to the Surface so that he can finish us all off? Why else would he have saved you from those bastards?” she ground out, her right hand clenching at her side.

“He didn’t want to leave the Underground.” Papyrus hugged Flowey closer to himself, using both arms. “I made him,” he mumbled, unable to look up at the enraged fish warrior any longer. His gaze was glued to Flowey, who had yet to lose his own nerves and look away from Undyne.

“But _why_ , Pap?” she stressed.

“Because everyone deserves another chance! Can we please just drop this?” he begged.

“ _No_! It’s that attitude that’s going to get you killed one of these days, Papyrus!” she stepped forward, startling Papyrus into taking a few steps back. “You can’t just make friends with everyone like that; it doesn’t work that way! That thing’s just using you and is going to hurt you later! You _have_ to realize that! So just let me stomp the damn thing so we can get out of here!”

She raised her arm, about to ready a strike, but Mettaton finally chose that moment to act. The robot grabbed her arm, pulling it back.

“Don’t you _dare_ try to stop me, you bucket of bolts!” Undyne shouted, her grin having long dissolved into a furious scowl. She smacked Mettaton’s arm aside, aiming to sock the robot straight in his boxy body before said robot wheeled back abruptly.

“How about you just _calm down_ , darling?” he suggested, sounding beyond irritated. “You’re not helping anything with this.”

“You weren’t there when that _weed_ ,” she spat, pointing at the flower in question, “attacked us and stole all of our souls! It tried to kill everyone in the Underground! And you want me to let it up to the Surface?”

“Honestly, darling, I don’t particularly care. I’m only down here because Alphys begged me to help you guys. We found your friend, so as far as I’m concerned we should be leaving right now.”

“You selfish bastard!” she shoved him back harshly. “Do you care about anything besides yourself?”

“Of course I do!” The panels on the robot’s body lit up in what Papyrus assumed might have been indignation. “And if your friend here wants to give the flower another chance, then I say let it happen.”

“You mean, if Papyrus wants to get himself killed, then let it happen?” she corrected.

“No,” Mettaton retorted, hands to what constituted as his hips. “We’re supposed to be preaching friendship here, aren’t we? Isn’t that what Frisk, Toriel, and Asgore are always going on about?” While the tone Mettaton used was the slightest bit condescending, Papyrus still had to appreciate his idol’s attempts at standing up for him and Flowey.

He was torn between fear, anxiety, and awe, afraid of how Undyne was reacting, yet amazed that the robot whom he practically worshipped was there sticking up for him. Flowey on the other hand looked a fearful mix of angry and confused, having further buried his head into Papyrus’ scarf as the two before them continued their argument.

“Forget them! They’re all a bunch of soft-hearted weenies!” Undyne shouted, to which Papyrus heard Flowey attempting to hide a snort of amusement.

Mettaton gave a haughty, practiced laugh. “Isn’t that the reason we all made it to the Surface in the first place?”

Undyne opened her mouth, only to shut it shortly thereafter to clench her teeth in anger. She threw her glower back at the flower in Papyrus’ arms. Her posture remained tense, her body shaking in obvious fury. Taking a moment to alieve at least a portion of her rage, she turned away from everyone, punching the wall in anger. A deafening _ngahhh!_ was let loose as the wall cracked under her fist. Papyrus and Flowey both jumped, startled, though Mettaton remained unimpressed.

After a few tense moments, the fish warrior turned back to the monsters before her, wiping the sweat from her brow. By no means did she look happy, although her fury appeared to have been schooled somewhat, much to Papyrus’ relief. He jumped and shuffled back a bit as she stomped forwards, though she stopped just in front of him, casting a glare down at Flowey.

“You make _one_ wrong move or say anything I don’t like, and you’re getting a spear straight to the head. You got that?”

Flowey nodded, returning her glare. It must have been good enough for Undyne, as she whipped back around and headed straight for the elevator she and Mettaton had come from. She pressed the button to open it, turning to glower at everyone else as the doors dinged open.

“Well, are you coming or what? Let’s get Alphie and Sans and get out of here!”

Papyrus perked up at the mention of his brother, realizing that he still had no idea how anyone had known to search for him down in the Underground. Still, instead of voicing his confusion, he obeyed Undyne’s order and entered the elevator with Mettaton right behind him. The ride up to the end of the Core was quiet and tense, Papyrus too afraid to say anything lest he unleash Undyne’s wrath. He hugged Flowey tighter to himself, shaking ever so slightly over the whole ordeal. How would everyone else react about Flowey?

The doors dinged open and everyone stepped out. Papyrus gazed down the long bridge leading into the Core, noting how he had never even seen pictures of the machine’s inside before. It certainly was not what he had been expecting. The dark abyss just beneath the bridge unnerved him to no end, though he tried his best to ignore it. There were more pressing matters at hand, after all.

“Hello Alphys, darling!” Mettaton suddenly spoke from behind him, startling him.

When he whipped around to see what was going on, he saw Mettaton facing away from the group, a hand up to the side his body. He must have contacted Alphys with some sort of technology built inside of him; Papyrus could think of no other conclusion.

Undyne leaned against the wall beside the elevator, actively avoiding looking at any of the monsters she was with. While he still desperately wanted to know how they had found him, he was still too afraid to speak with her while she was so obviously upset. Alphys and Sans would be around in no time, at least if he was understanding Mettaton’s side of the phone conversation properly. Once they showed up, he could ask them. This was under the assumption that they too wouldn’t react similarly to Undyne of course, but he couldn’t see that happening with how the two monsters’ temperaments were.

As a soft click came from Mettaton, likely indicating that he had finished his call, the four monsters sat back in a continuation of their strained silence from the elevator. Papyrus continued glancing between both Undyne and Mettaton, uncertain of how to proceed with either of them, and opted to instead sit down against a wall and fiddle with the hem of his scarf. Flowey, who had had himself buried in the garment since the whole incident started, pulled his head back and gazed up at the skeleton.

The flower gave his friend an irritated look, quickly glancing back at Undyne before returning his gaze. Papyrus shrugged, giving the flower a sad smile. In response, Flowey stuck out his tongue in disgust, causing the skeleton to let loose a small giggle. Undyne threw a questioning look the duo’s way before turning aside with a huff.

Papyrus felt a pang of sadness hit with her dismissal, wondering if perhaps the entire situation would be enough to kill off their friendship for good. Undyne had already been so distant before everything, and her rage over seeing Flowey was not something he felt he could cope with at the moment. In the past, she had reacted the same way after he had first befriended Frisk, which gave him some amount of hope. After all, Frisk and Undyne had eventually grown quite close to each other, despite the fish warrior’s original ironclad resolution to kill them.

An irritated sigh brought him from his musings over to Flowey, who kept tossing discreet glares Undyne’s way. There was the minute concern that one of those times Undyne would catch the flower making faces at her, but he doubted anything too terrible would arise from it. If push came to shove, Papyrus hoped that Mettaton would interject himself into the situation again and stop any would-be arguments.

Speaking of the robot, the panels on his body lit up, and he brought his hand back up to answer a call.

“Alphys? Did you get Sans?” he paused as the scientist began talking, followed by: “Oh, he—”

“Papyrus!” called out a new voice, interrupting Mettaton from his phone call.

“Never mind, darling. He’s here already,” the robot deadpanned, ending his call and giving an overdramatic sigh.

Sure enough, there was Sans, standing at the end of the bridge closest to the group. The tired appearance he had lost after living so long on the Surface had returned, which could only mean that he hadn’t been sleeping properly. Was it an effect from Papyrus’ kidnapping, or was something going on between he, Frisk, and Toriel at their home? Papyrus suspected the latter, since after all, Sans had long distanced himself from his little brother.

He frowned, wanting to smack himself for such a thought. Even if Sans had been so distant and wanted nothing to do with him, he obviously still worried about him. Unless he had been faking it all of those years before the Barrier broke, he cared deeply for his little brother. Even if he stopped putting up with him and ignored him so often, his affection for his brother couldn’t have been completely erased. Sans just wasn’t like that, and it wasn’t fair of him to project such things onto him.

He looked up at Sans from where he sat, prepared to put a smile on his face and pretend that everything was okay, just as he had done before being kidnapped. Except, something caught his eye before he could even throw his façade up. Papyrus froze as Sans stood before the group, eye sockets dark as the stocky skeleton stared directly at Flowey. He knew that look well coming from his older brother, and it never bode well for whoever it was directed at. As much as Sans had always tried to hide it from him, he always managed to catch glimpses of it. Unconsciously, he hugged Flowey closer to himself, bringing his knees up to curl around him.

“S-Sans,” he mumbled, “don’t.”

The look was gone in an instant, his brother’s pupils returning. Sans’ expression remained unreadable, though the ever-present grin on his face was clearly strained. The shorter skeleton took a few cautious steps towards his brother curled up against the wall.

Flowey’s glare transferred itself from Undyne to Sans, his face shifting into one of its hellish forms.

“You do anything else to upset him and I _will_ kill you,” the flower hissed.

Sans stopped in his tracks, his face falling into confusion. Undyne, meanwhile, had shifted from her spot standing near the elevator. While initially she had been poised to strike Flowey, she halted after registering just what the flower had said. Her face held an odd mix of disbelief, intrigue, and irritancy.

“I’m just trying to comfort my bro, okay?” Sans’s posture slouched over as his expression became defeated.

Flowey’s face reverted back to normal, a scowl still planted on his face. Deep down, Papyrus had known that this meeting would be difficult for both his friend and brother, seeing as Flowey made it plainly clear that he despised the stocky skeleton. While Sans himself had never spoken about the flower to him, his immediate reaction upon seeing Flowey suggested some form of dislike towards him. It appeared that Sans was able to put grudges behind him much more easily than Flowey though, seeing as he had dropped his threatening stance long before the flower had.

Shifting from his spot, Papyrus gazed warily up at his brother, putting an uncertain smile on his face. Sans got down to his knees, wrapping his arms carefully around the other skeleton, mindful of Flowey. Papyrus shuffled the flower out of the way so that he could reciprocate his brother’s hug, setting the flowerpot on the ground beside him and wrapping both arms around Sans. His feelings over the whole ordeal were conflicted. He was confused over everyone’s reactions to Flowey; upset over having everyone whom he had believed to have given up on him there. Yet there Sans was, hugging him and murmuring over and over again about how sorry he was. For what exactly, Papyrus was not certain, though he neglected to voice his concerns.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t crying or even tearing up, even though he thought that he would have during a moment such as that. Perhaps his entire experience since being kidnapped had thoroughly drained him. He wasn’t sure. Either way, he silently rubbed Sans’ back as the other skeleton continued to cling to his sweater, still apologizing profusely. Sans gave one final squeeze before pulling away, not meeting his brother’s eyes. Sensing the present tenseness radiating off of everyone in the area, Papyrus gently put a hand to Sans’ shoulder.

“Um, thanks, Sans,” he mumbled as his older brother finally looked up at him.

His brother merely nodded at him, his grin beginning to look more natural.

A soft pattering of feet interrupted the ensuing silence as a small, yellow lizard made her way across the bridge leading from the Core. Her heavy breathing indicated that she had likely rushed the entire way there. She stopped before the group of monsters in front of the elevator, wiping sweat from her brow and adjusting her glasses.

“U-Um, hi there, guys! I-I uh, I made it back!” she stuttered through her greetings, skittering to stand besides Undyne.

The fish warrior visibly relaxed upon finding her girlfriend safe beside her, putting a hand to her shoulder and giving her a tense smile. It was then that Alphys really took the scenery in, finding Sans and Papyrus sitting on the ground besides Flowey. Her eyes widened in shock as she took the flower in.

“O-Oh!” she exclaimed. “I-I didn’t kn-know you were still down here!” More sweat began to form along her brow as a strained, anxious smile appeared on her face.

“Yeah, and the weed’s coming with us, apparently,” Undyne muttered, rolling her eyes.

Alphys for the most part appeared unfazed by the comment, shuffling towards the trio on the floor. She glanced at Mettaton as she passed him, though as thoroughly disinterested in the situation as the robot was, he continued to ignore everything going on around him.

“A-Are you guys okay?” she asked, the question directed at both Papyrus and Flowey.

“Yeah, of course,” Papyrus responded, not quite certain if he was even telling the truth. Still, he threw a smile on his face, elaborating on his answer. “Flowey helped me get through most of the Underground! If it wasn’t for him, those humans would have caught me again! And he was the one who saved me, too!”

Faintly, he could hear Flowey grumbling beside him. Sans was staring warily at the flower, although Papyrus wasn’t quite able to tell what was going through his head at the time. Meanwhile, Alphys held a look of nervous intrigue, wringing her hands together as the smile wavered from her face.

“Oh, w-well, that’s interesting,” she replied, looking back at Undyne, who merely scoffed and gave her a shrug. She turned back, glancing between the two skeletons and flower still sitting in front of her. “B-But…” She looked away, staring pointedly at the floor. “I-I hate t-to bring this up, b-but wh-what if he tries h-hurting someone again?”

Papyrus dropped his gaze just as Alphys had, his heart dropping at her doubt. Of course it was natural for everyone to be cautious of the flower, but it was disheartening to see no one willing to trust him. He had Mettaton on his side for whatever reason, but he was certain that the robot was only agreeing with him so that they could get back to the Surface sooner. Then again, he had sounded so sure of himself as he defended Flowey alongside him. Sighing, Papyrus picked Flowey back up and hugged the flower to himself. Mettaton had his reasons, Papyrus was sure, and it wasn’t his business to go prying around.

This time it was Sans putting a hand to his shoulder, causing Papyrus to stare back at him. His brother’s grin was resigned as he turned to Alphys.

“If my brother trusts him, then we mine as well let him come with us. Frisk would do the same, wouldn’t they?” he suggested.

Flowey gave a quiet groan and threw Papyrus a look that practically screamed _can you believe this guy_? His friend clearly wasn’t buying what Sans had to say, not that Papyrus blamed him. While he knew Sans thought him to be too naïve to see through his acts, Papyrus knew that there were many things his brother put up with just to keep the taller skeleton happy. He would preach about allowing Flowey onto the Surface, but there were would be restrictions. Flowey would likely be watched like a hawk in case he tried to pull something.

“W-Well yes, I-I suppose,” Alphys mumbled in response to Sans.

Papyrus could hear Undyne muttering in the background, a scowl planted on her face. While he couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, it clearly wasn’t something nice about Flowey.

Alphys turned back to Papyrus, attempting to keep the ever straining smile on her face. “I-I’m glad you’re alright, Papyrus. E-Everyone w-was really worried about you.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled, staring down at Flowey. Sans put his arm around his brother’s shoulder and Papyrus gave him a quick smile. As he hugged Flowey closer to himself, he figured that it was time to get some answers from everyone. “So, how did you guys find me?”

Sans’ face hardened at his brother’s question, his eye sockets darkening ever so slightly. “Tori and I took Frisk over to your house so we could congratulate you on getting the new job, but the place was completely wrecked.”

As he finished the beginning of his explanation, Papyrus noticed Flowey perking up, curiosity filling his face.

“After we couldn’t find you, we called Undyne and the human police.”

“Yeah, but the humans were completely useless!” Undyne interjected. “They tried to tell us that you just wandered off on your own!” she emphasized, moving forward to stand beside Alphys once more, hands clenched at her sides. “I mean, what? Do they think we’re all a bunch of idiots or something? Your house was _trashed_ , and I _know_ you would never do something like that! You’re way too neat!”

After having seen her so livid and upset over the whole Flowey ordeal, Papyrus was honestly surprised over the fish warrior’s current outburst. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as angry with the skeleton as he had initially believed?

“So, what did you guys do?” he questioned, growing more comfortable as the group’s anger shifted from Flowey over towards something else.

“We looked into it ourselves, obviously!” Undyne responded, confident grin growing on her face. “We had Alphie here to do all of the nerd stuff!” she exclaimed, clapping a hand on her girlfriend’s back.

Alphys jumped at the sudden attention, gasping as her face began to turn bright red.

“W-W-Well, I-I-I—” her stutter intensified, causing Sans to continue for her.

“You know how she brought most of her lab supplies up to the Surface and everything. We were able to use some of it to help us out with finding those humans who took you.”

Undyne, getting increasingly into their recounting of the story, gestured wildly at the small, yellow lizard.

“Alphie did an _amazing_ job tracking those bastards down! Screw those police on the Surface! We found those guys in record time thanks to her!”

“Noooo…” Alphys moaned. She covered her face, the embarrassment too much for her.

Despite everything, Papyrus felt a smile slowly forming on his face. Even after two years, his friends acted almost exactly the same as they had back when they still lived in the Underground. He wasn’t sure if it was always this way or if it was just because they had found him, but it was comforting to see some familiarity back in his life. His smile slipped ever so slightly as he remembered that everyone would likely continue avoiding him once more once they got him back to the Surface. Flowey glanced up at him as he let loose a quiet sigh, curiosity and intrigue showing on his face.

Sans and Undyne continued their butchered retelling of how they had ended up finding him in the Underground. He was only half paying attention as his mind began to wander into one of his ever familiar depressive fits, though he got the gist of their story. After Alphys had pinpointed the humans’ hideout (it had been a warehouse in the same large city, the one where he would have worked had the job he gotten been an actual job and not some trap), Undyne and Sans had gone to the place to find that both their missing friend and the humans had already left for Mt. Ebott.

“We found some files talking about their plans to get into the Underground,” Sans drawled, likely having noticed Papyrus’ lack of attention, “and we kind of figured that you guys would be coming in through New Home.”

“Those idiots don’t even _know_ about New Home,” Flowey muttered under his breath, drawing an angered glare from Undyne.

“U-Um, yeah,” Papyrus cut in, attempting to draw the attention away from his friend, “I only told them about the entrance at Mt. Ebott. They didn’t listen to me long enough to hear about where the Barrier was.”

There was a long pause in the conversation as everyone seemed to become lost in their own thoughts. Papyrus could feel himself begin to shake, though he didn’t necessarily understand quite _why_ he was becoming so anxious. He suspected that it had something to do with their current conversation about the humans. After all, it had been difficult enough to talk about them with Flowey. Why would sharing anything about them be any easier with his other friends?

“Those bastards didn’t hurt you too bad, did they?” Undyne asked softly. Her intent had likely been to comfort, though Papyrus could hear the restrained rage behind her voice.

“Oh, uh, no they didn’t. I was fine, really! They didn’t do anything too bad, so you don’t need to worry about me at all!” he spluttered out in a rush, his shaking only intensifying.

“Real convincing, Paps,” Flowey deadpanned in response, just loud enough for only Papyrus to hear.

“I’m great!” he exclaimed a little too loudly, covering up the latter half of Flowey’s remark.

He jumped and clutched hard at Flowey’s flowerpot as a hand started rubbing his back. Sans’ eyes were blank as he instinctively tried to comfort his brother, leaving Papyrus feeling more unnerved than anything. Reaching a trembling arm outwards, Papyrus pulled the shorter skeleton into a one-armed hug, Sans reciprocating silently.

Undyne never even responded to Papyrus’ panicked rambling, simply flinging herself around to take out her fury on the wall behind her. If there was anything to be learned from the situation at hand, it was that Papyrus really needed to work harder on his lying skills. Having his friends worry about him all of the time had surely been one of the reasons why they had all left him before, making him an even bigger burden to them.

“I’m fine…” he trailed off, only trying to convince himself at that point.

There were a few more moments of silence as Undyne’s anger continued to wane, Alphys aiding her in calming down. Sans continued to hold his brother in their awkward, one-armed hug, Flowey stuck off to side in Papyrus’ free arm.

A robotic huff came from the far end of the area, followed by the sound of something wheeling itself over. Mettaton finally joined the group, standing just barely between the skeleton brothers and the girlfriends, hands on what constituted as his hips.

“Really, you’re just going to stop right there? I’d like to get out of here and get back to my life, you know,” he scolded, his tone condescending. Undyne and Flowey both gave the robot scathing, annoyed looks, though he appeared to be immune to the both of them. “So, after everyone found out the humans brought you to the Underground, they called me, knowing that they would need my fabulous assistance in finding you.”

“You’re only moving on with this because it’s finally about you, you ass,” Undyne spat as Alphys’ face began to heat up in embarrassment once more.

“Well, really darling, the story’s not all that interesting without me in it,” he retorted, dramatically throwing a hand out to the side.

“You haven’t _done_ anything, you prick!” This time Undyne practically snarled, Alphys lightly patting her arm and holding her hand to keep her at bay.

Papyrus could hear Flowey quietly giggling to himself, clearly amused with the entire scenario. Had it not been for Undyne’s unique way of conversing with people and letting off steam, he figured that the flower would have actually been thoroughly annoyed with the situation. The overbearing fish warrior appeared to amuse him, even if he tried to hide it.

“ _Anyways_ ,” Mettaton stressed, “Alphys came to me, begging that I help her with finding you. The humans would have been difficult foes for Undyne and Sans to have apprehended on their own, after all. Who better to ask for assistance than me?”

It was at that point that Undyne broke free from the meek hold of her girlfriend to shove the robot aside. Having known Undyne for many years, it was obvious to Papyrus that there was no real harm meant in the action; that was simply just how Undyne dealt with annoyances.

“We went down an elevator and back up it immediately!” Undyne stated, exasperated. “Why do you need to make everything so damn dramatic all the time?”

“I could say the same to you,” Mettaton muttered in response, folding his arms and turning away from the argument.

Undyne merely shoved him once more, causing the robot to almost lose his balance. “Oh my god, you’re such a child! You can’t just end an argument like that!” she shouted.

The two continued their feud, the others in the group watching on in uncertainty. Alphys had long ago hid her face in her hands, the red on her cheeks apparent nonetheless. Flowey had stopped his giggling, slight annoyance finally filtering into his expression. The shenanigans of the situation had finally gotten the best of the flower. Papyrus glanced down at his brother, who simply shrugged at the younger skeleton’s questioning look.

“Well, uh,” the shorter skeleton started, doing his best to be heard over the increasingly loud voices of Undyne and Mettaton. “The four of us came down here to find you. Alphys and I got the Core back up and running so that we could get down through Hotland, but it’s not going to keep running for long without anyone to manage it.” He shrugged once more. “It’s not like we need any power to get back to New Home from here.”

Papyrus nodded quietly as his brother finished the group’s explanation. He gazed across the bridge leading into the Core, taking earlier worries into consideration.

“Do you think the Core will run long enough for the humans to get out of here?” he asked. His question earned him an instant glare from Flowey, which went mostly ignored.

“I guess it depends on how quickly they get here. If they’re in Hotland right now, then I’d say they have a chance. If they’re still stuck in Snowdin or Waterfall, then who knows.”

“Golly, I already told you not to worry about this,” Flowey hissed.

“I know, I know!” Papyrus responded before Sans could say anything. “I know they can get back out through Mt. Ebott, but I can’t help it.”

Flowey scoffed, turning away to glare at the wall.

Relative silence settled between the two, only broken by a disgruntled sigh from Sans. The shorter skeleton began to stand up, holding a hand out to help his brother up as he did so. Papyrus accepted the hand and lifted himself to stand beside the other skeleton. With that, Sans walked over to the two monsters still having a heated discussion with one another, breaking it apart with his blue magic. Undyne threw him a quick scowl as she was gently pushed away from Mettaton, but dropped it in resignation as her soul was released and she was left standing closer to Alphys.

“What do you say we all get going?” he suggested.

Mettaton of course perked up instantly, having been eager to leave the Underground since he and Undyne had first found Papyrus. Meanwhile, he felt Flowey tense up in his arms. He gripped the flowerpot tighter, hoping to give his friend some amount of reassurance, though he knew it wouldn’t do much. His friend hadn’t been on the Surface in what he believed to be many, many years, after all. While Mettaton was certainly thrilled to be heading back up to the Surface, it was obvious that Flowey still had his reservations.

The robot celebrity was already throwing himself into the hall leading to the capital, the rest of the group following a short ways behind him. Papyrus and Flowey were at the back of the group, Sans walking beside them at a leisurely pace.

“The Surface is really great, Flowey,” Papyrus mentioned down to his friend, hoping to ease his worries somewhat. “You won’t regret coming back with me, I promise!”

“I regretted it the first time; why would this time be any different?” his friend muttered, clearly displeased with being so close to their destination.

Sans gave the flower an odd look after the casual statement, and it took Papyrus a moment to remember that his brother did in fact know about the resets just like Flowey. Did he know that the flower had previously been to the Surface, though? And what about Papyrus’ own newfound knowledge of the resets? While he had promised his friend that he wouldn’t drop the bombshell about him being Prince Asriel to anyone, was he allowed to let Sans know that Flowey had told him about their screwed up timelines?

He gave himself a mental shrug. What did it matter? Would Sans even care if his younger brother found out about the resets? Flowey _had_ mentioned that a true reset would soon wipe all of their memories completely, and he figured that Sans already knew that. He would probably shrug the information off and continue on his lazy way if Papyrus ever revealed his newfound knowledge. It upset him a bit knowing that that would be how his brother would react. Actually having his older brother open up and talking with him about his problems was something Papyrus had always wanted, hating how his brother was so closed off to the world about his life.

The group strolled on into the outskirts of New Home, the castle just before them. They would be out of the Underground soon enough, and everyone would go back to their lives and distance themselves from him as they had done before. Perhaps they would take some time to watch over the skeleton that they had rescued, but he knew they would go back to ignoring him eventually. Still, a small smile lifted his expression. He had Flowey now, even if his friend was a bit angry and bitter about life in general. Having one friend to stick with him was better than nothing, and Flowey had already made it clear that he planned to spend the rest of the current timeline with him.

Who knew? Perhaps everything would finally begin to get better for him from then on out. Having always been quite the optimist, he took this idea and ran with it. Things truly would be great once they made it back to the Surface. He would integrate both himself and Flowey back into his friends’ lives, and then everyone would spend the rest of the timeline content and happy before the upcoming true reset occurred. His smile grew into an all-out grin with his continuing thoughts. He would make the best out of what time he and his friends had left on the Surface; he just had to.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted over on fanfiction.net, but I finally got an ao3 account and figured I'd post it over here as well. As I told the readers over at fanfic .net, feel free to leave constructive criticism. This was originally an experimental work for me, as I struggle with pacing and wanted to try and fix that. I've been told that the pacing issues become more obvious in the latter half of the story here, but I'd like to hear what you guys think so I can keep getting better!
> 
> Also be warned, because the beginning of chapter 1 was written to be confusing on purpose. I hope that doesn't drive anyone away.


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